
Glass 
Book 






THE SLEEPING-CAR AND 
OTHER FARCES. 



THE 



SLEEPING-CAR 



AND 



OTHER FARCES 



BY 



WILLIAM D. HOWELLS 







BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 



u 



% 



Copyright, 1S82, 18S3, and 1884, by Harper & Brothers; 

AND 
1S76, 1S83, 18S4, 18S5, AND 1S89, BY W. D. HOWELLS. 



All rights reserved. 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S, A, 
Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company. 






CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

The Parlok-Car 11 

The Sleeping-Car 51 

The Register 101 

The Elevator 161 



THE PARLOR-CAE. 

FARCE. 



THE PARLOR-CAR. 



Scene : A Parlor-Car on the New York Central 
Eailroad. It is late afternoon in the early 
autumn, with a cloudy sunset threatening rain. 
The car is unoccupied save by a gentleman, who 
sits fronting one of the windows, with his feet 
in another chair; a newspaper lies across his 
lap ; his hat is drawn down over his eyes, and 
he is apparently asleep. The rear door of the 
car opens, and the conductor enters with a 
young lady, heavily veiled, the porter coming 
after with her wraps and travelling-bags. The 
lady's air is of mingled anxiety and despera- 
tion, with a certain fierceness of movement. 
She casts a careless glance over the empty 
chairs. 

Conductor: "Here's your ticket, madam. You 
can have any of the places you like here, or," — 
glancing at the unconscious gentleman, and then 
11 



12 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

at the young lady, — "if you prefer, you can go 
and take that seat in the forward car." 

Miss Lucy Galhraith: "Oh, I can't ride back- 
wards. I'll stay here, please. Thank you." The 
porter places her things in a chair by a window, 
across the car from the sleeping gentleman, and 
she throws herself wearily into the next seat, 
wheels round in it, and lifting her veil gazes 
absently out at the landscape. Her face, which 
is very pretty, with a low forehead shadowed by 
thick blond hair, shows the traces of tears. She 
makes search in her pocket for her handkerchief, 
which she presses to her eyes. The conductor, 
lingering a moment, goes out. 

Porter : " I'll be right here, at de end of de cah, 
if you should happen to want anything, miss," — 
making a feint of arranging the shawls and 
satchels. "Should you like some dese things 
hung up? Well, dey'U be jus' as well in de 
chair. We's pretty late dis afternoon ; more'n 
four hours behin' time. Ought to been into 
Albany 'fore dis. Freight train off de track jus' 
dis side o' Kochester, an' had to wait. Was you 
going to stop at Schenectady, miss ? " 

Miss Galbraith, absently : " At Schenectady ? " 
After a pause, " Yes." 



AND OTHER FARCES. 13 

Porter: "Well, that's de next station, and 
den de cahs don't stop ag'in till dey git to 
Albany. Anything else I can do for you now, 
miss ? " 

Miss Galhraith : " No, no, thank you, nothing." 
The Porter hesitates, takes off his cap, and 
scratches his head with a murmur of embarrass- 
ment. Miss Galhraith looks up at him inquiringly 
and then suddenly takes out her porte-monnaie, 
and fees him. 

Porter : " Thank you, miss, thank you. If you 
want anything at all, miss, I'm right dere at de 
end of de cah." He goes out by the narrow 
passage-way beside the smaller enclosed parlor. 
Miss Galhraith looks askance at the sleeping gen- 
tleman, and then, rising, goes to the large mirror, 
to pin her veil, which has become loosened from 
her hat. She gives a little start at sight of the 
gentleman in the mirror, but arranges her head- 
gear, and returning to her place looks out of the 
window again. After a little while she moves 
about uneasily in her chair, then leans forward, 
and tries to raise her window ; she lifts it partly 
up, when the catch slips from her fingers, and the 
window falls shut again with a crash. 



14 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

Miss Galhraith : " Oh, dear, how provoking ! I 
suppose I must call the porter." She rises from 
her seat, but on attempting to move away she finds 
that the skirt of her polonaise has been caught in 
the falling window. She pulls at it, and then 
tries to lift the window again, but the cloth has 
wedged it in, and she cannot stir it. "Well, I 
certainly think this is beyond endurance ! Porter ! 
Ah, — Porter! Oh, he'll never hear me in the 
racket that these wheels are making ! I wish 
they'd stop, — I " — The gentleman stirs in his 
chair, lifts his head, listens, takes his feet down 
from the other seat, rises abruptly, and comes to 
Miss Galbraith/s side. 

Mr. Allen Richards: "Will you allow me to 
open the window for you ? " Starting back, " Miss 
Galbraith!" 

Miss Galbraith : " Al — Mr. Kichards ! " There 
is a silence for some moments, in which they 
remain looking at each other ; then, — 

Mr. Richards : " Lucy " — 

Miss Galbraith: "I forbid you to address me 
in that way, Mr. Richards." 

Mr. Richards: "Why, you were just going to 
call me Allen ! " 



AKD OTHER FAECES. 15 

Miss Galbraith: "That was an accident, you 
know very well, — an impulse " — 

Mr. Richards : " Well, so is this." 

Miss Galbraith: "Of which you ought to be 
ashamed to take advantage. I wonder at your 
presumption in speaking to me at all. It's quite 
idle, I can assure you. Everything is at an end 
between us. It seems that I bore with you too 
long; but I'm thankful that I had the spirit to 
act at last, and to act in time. And now that 
chance has thrown us together, I trust that you 
will not force your conversation upon me. No 
gentleman would, and I have always given you 
credit for thinking yourself a gentleman. I re- 
quest that you will not speak to me." 

Mr. Richards : " You've spoken ten words to me 
for every one of mine to you. But I won't annoy 
you. I can't believe it, Lucy ; I can not believe it. 
It seems like some rascally dream, and if I had 
had any sleep since it happened, I should think I 
had dreamed it." 

Miss Galbraith : " Oh ! You were sleeping 
soundly enough when I got into the car ! " 

Mr. Richards : " I own it ; I was perfectly used 
up, and I had dropped off." 



16 THE SLEEPINGKJAR 

Miss Galhraith, scornfully : " Then perhaps you 
have dreamed it." 

Mr. Richards : '^ I'll think so till you tell me 
again that our engagement is broken; that the 
faithful love of years is to go for nothing; that 
you dismiss me with cruel insult, without one 
word of explanation, without a word of intelligible 
accusation, even. It's too much ! I've been think- 
ing it all over and over, and I can't make head or 
tail of it. I meant to see you again as soon as we * 
got to town, and implore you to hear me. Come, 
it's a mighty serious matter, Lucy. I'm not a man 
to put on heroics and that ; but I believe it'll play 
the very deuce with me, Lucy, — that is to say, 
Miss Galbraith, — I do indeed. It'll give me a low 
opinion of woman." 

Miss Galhraith, averting her face : " Oh, a very 
high opinion of woman you have had ! " 

Mr. Richards, with sentiment : " Well, there 
was one woman whom I thought a perfect angel." 

Miss Galbraith : " Indeed ! May I ask her 
name ? " 

Mr. Richards, with a forlorn smile. " I shall be 
obliged to describe her somewhat formally as — 
Miss Galbraith." 



AND OTHER FAKCES. 17 

Miss Galbraith : " Mr. Richards ! '' 

Mr. Richards : " Why, you've just forbidden me 
to say Lucy ! You must tell me, dearest, what I 
have done to offend you. The worst criminals are 
not condemned unheard, and I've always thought 
you were merciful if not just. And now I only 
ask you to be just." 

Miss Galbraith, looking out of the window : 
"You know very well what you've done. You 
can't expect me to humiliate myself by putting 
your offence into words." 

Mr. Richards : " Upon my soul, I don't know 
what you mean ! I donH know what I've done. 
When you came at me, last night, with my ring 
and presents and other little traps, you might have 
knocked me down with the lightest of the lot. I 
was perfectly dazed ; I couldn't say anything be- 
fore you were off, and all I could do was to hope 
that you'd be more like yourself in the morning. 
And in the morning, when I came round to Mrs. 
Philips's, I found you were gone, and I came after 
you by the next train." 

Miss Galbraith : " Mr. Eichards, your personal 
history for the last twenty-four hours is a matter 
of perfect indifference to me, as it shall be for the 



18 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

next twenty-four hundred years. I see that you 
are resolved to annoy me, and since you will not 
leave the car, / must do so." She rises haughtily 
from her seat, but the imprisoned skirt of her 
polonaise twitches her abruptly back into her 
chair. She bursts into tears. " Oh, what shall 1 
do?" 

Mr. Richards, dryly : " You shall do whatever 
you like. Miss Galbraith, when IVe set you free ; 
for I see your dress is caught in the window. When 
it's once out, I'll shut the window, and you can 
call the porter to raise it." He leans forward over 
her chair, and while she shrinks back the length 
of her tether, he tugs at the window-fastening. 
" I can't get at it. Would you be so good as to 
stand up, — all you can ? " Miss Galbraith stands 
up, droopingly, and Mr. Richards makes a move- 
ment towards her, and then falls back. " No, that 
won't do. Please sit down again." He goes 
round her chair and tries to get at the window 
from that side. " I can't get any purchase on it. 
Why don't you cut out that piece ? " Miss Gal- 
hraith stares at him in dumb amazement. "Well, 
I don't see what we're to do. I'll go and get the 
porter." He goes to the end of the car, and 



AND OTHER FARCES. 19 

returns. " I can't find the porter, — he must be in 
one of the other cars. But '^ — brightening with 
the fortunate conception — " I've just thought of 
something. Will it unbutton ? " 

Miss Galbraith : " Unbutton ? " 

Mr. Richards : " Yes ; this garment of yours.'' 

Miss Galbraith : " My polonaise ? " Inquir- 
ingly, ^' Yes." 

Mr. Richards : " Well, then, it's a very simple 
matter. If you will just take it off I caa 
easily " — 

Miss Galbraith, faintly : " I can't. A polonaise 
isn't like an overcoat " — 

Mr. Richards, with dismay : " Oh ! Well, 
then " — He remains thinking a moment in 
hopeless perplexity. 

Miss Galbraith, with polite ceremony : " The 
porter will be back soon. Don't trouble yourself 
any further about it, please. I shall do very 
well." 

Mr. Richards, without heeding her: "If you 
could kneel on that foot-cushion, and face the 
window " — 

Miss Galbraith, kneeling promptly : " So ? " 

Mr. Richards : " Yes, and now " — kneeling be- 



20 THE SLEEPING-CAB 

side her — " if you'll allow me to — to get at tlie 
window-catch," — he stretches both arms forward ; 
she shrinks from his right into his left, and 
then back again, — ^' and pull, while I raise the 
window " — : 

Miss Galbraith: "Yes, yes; but do hurry, 
please. If any one saw us, I don't know what 
they would think. It's perfectly ridiculous ! " — 
pulling. " It's caught in the corner of the window, 
between the frame and the sash, and it won't 
come ! Is my hair troubling you ? Is it in your 
eyes ? " 

Mr. Richards : " It's in my eyes, but it isn't 
troubling me. Am I inconveniencing you ? " 

Miss Galbraith : " Oh, not at all." 

Mr. Richards : " Well, now then, pull hard ! " 
He lifts the window with a great effort ; the 
polonaise comes free with a start, and she strikes 
violently against him. In supporting the shock 
he cannot forbear catching her for an instant to 
his heart. She frees herself, and starts indig- 
nantly to her feet. 

Miss Galbraith : " Oh, what a cowardly — subter- 
fuge!" 

Mr. Richards : " Cowardly ? You've no idea 



AND OTHER FARCES. 21 

how much courage it took." Miss Galhraith puts 
her handkerchief to her face, and sobs. " Oh, don't 
cry ! Bless my heart, — I'm sorry I did it ! But 
you know how dearly I love you, Lucy, though I 
do think you've been cruelly unjust. I told you 
I never should love any one else, and I never shall. 
I couldn't help it; upon my soul, I couldn't. 
Nobody could. Don't let it vex you, my " — He 
approaches her. 

Miss Galhraith : " Please not touch me, sir ! 
You have no longer any right whatever to do 
so." 

Mr, Richards : " You misinterpret a very in- 
offensive gesture. I have no idea of touching you, 
but I hope I may be allowed, as a special favor, 
to — pick up my hat, which you are in the act of 
stepping on." Miss Galhraith hastily turns, and 
strikes the hat with her whirling skirts ; it rolls 
to the other side of the parlor, and Mr. Bichardsy 
who goes after it, utters an ironical " Thanks ! " 
He brushes it, and puts it on, looking at her 
where she has again seated herself at the window 
with her back to him, and continues, ^^ As for any 
further molestation from me " — 

Miss Galhraith : " If you will talk to me " — 



22 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

Mr. Richards : " Excuse me, I am not talking to 
you." 

Miss Galhraith : " What were you doing ? " 

Mr. Richards : " I was beginning to think aloud. 
I — I was soliloquizing. I suppose I may be 
allowed to soliloquize ? ^' 

Miss Galbraithj very coldly : " You can do what 
you like." 

Mr. Richards : " Unfortunately that's just what 
I can't do. If I could do as I liked, I should ask 
you a single question." 

Miss Galbraith, after a moment : " Well, sir, you 
may ask your question." She remains as before, 
with her chin in her hand, looking tearfully out of 
the window ; her face is turned from Mr. Richards, 
who hesitates a moment before he speaks. 

Mr. Richards: "I wish to ask you just this. 
Miss Galbraith : if you couldn't ride backwards 
in the other car, why do you ride backwards in 
this ? " 

Miss Galhraith, burying her face in her hand- 
kerchief, and sobbing : " Oh, oh, oh ! This is too 
bad ! " 

Mr. Richards : " Oh, come now, Lucy. It breaks 
my heart to hear you going on so, and all for 



AbTD OTHER FARCES. 23 

nothing. Be a little merciful to both of us, and 
listen to me. I've no doubt I can explain every- 
thing if I once understand it, but it's pretty hard 
explaining a thing if you don't understand it your- 
self. Do turn round. I know it makes you sick 
to ride in that way, and if you don't want to face 
me — there ! " — wheeling in his chair so as to 
turn his back upon her — " you needn't. Though 
it's rather trying to a fellow's politeness, not to 
mention his other feelings. Now, what in the 
name " — 

Porter, who at this moment enters with his 
step-ladder, and begins to light the lamps : " Going 
pretty slow ag'in, sah." 

Mr. Richards : ^' Yes ; what's the trouble ? " 

Porter: "Well, I don't know exactly, sah. 
Something de matter with de locomotive. We 
sha'n't be into Albany much 'fore eight o'clock." 

Mr. Richards .\ " What's the next station ? " 

Porter : " Schenectady." 

Jfn Richards : " Is the whole train as empty as 
this car ? " 

Porter, laughing : " Well, no, sah. Fact is, dis 
cah don't belong on dis train. It's a Pullman that 
we hitched on when you got in, and we's taking it 



24 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

along for one of de Eastern roads. We let you in 
'cause de Drawing-rooms was all full. Same with 
de lady," — looking sympathetically at her, as he 
takes his steps to go out. " Can I do anything for 
you now, miss ? " 

Miss Galhraith, plaintively: "No, thank you; 
nothing whatever." She has turned while Mr. 
Richards and The Porter have been speaking, and 
now faces the back of the former, but her veil is 
drawn closely. The Porter goes out. 

Mr. Richards, wheeling round so as to confront 
her: "I wish you would speak to me half as 
kindly as you do to that darky, Lucy." 

Miss Galbi^aith : " He is a gentleman ! " 

Mr. Richards: "He is an urbane and well- 
informed nobleman. At any rate, he's a man and 
a brother. But so am I." Miss Galhraith does 
not reply, and after a pause Mr. Richards resumes. 
''Talking of gentlemen, I recollect, once, coming 
up on the day-boat to Poughkeepsie, there was a 
poor devil of a tipsy man kept following a young 
fellow about, and annoying him to death — trying 
to fight him, as a tipsy man will, and insisting that 
the young fellow had insulted him. By and by he 
lost his balance and went overboard, and the other 



AND OTHER FARCES. 25 

jumped after him and fished him out." Sensation 
on the part of 3Iiss Galbraith, who stirs uneasily 
in her chair, looks out of the window, then looks 
at Mr. Richards, and drops her head. " There was 
a young lady on board, who had seen the whole 
thing — a very charming young lady indeed, with 
pale blond hair growing very thick over her fore- 
head, and dark eyelashes to the sweetest blue eyes 
in the world. Well, this young lady's papa was 
amongst those who came up to say civil things to 
the young fellow when he got aboard again, and to 
ask the honor — he said the honor — of his ac- 
quaintance. And when he came out of his state- 
room in dry clothes, this infatuated old gentleman 
was waiting for him, and took him and introduced 
him to his wife and daughter; and the daughter 
said, with tears in her eyes, and a perfectly intoxi- 
cating impulsiveness, that it was the grandest and 
the most heroic and the noblest thing that she had 
ever seen, and she should always be a better girl 
for having seen it. Excuse me. Miss Galbraith, 
for troubling you with these facts of a personal 
history, which, as you say, is a matter of perfect 
indifference to you. The young fellow didn't 
think at the time he had done anything extraor- 



26 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

dinary ; but I don't suppose he did expect to live 
to have the same girl tell him he was no gentle- 
man." 

Miss Galbraith, wMlj : " Allen, Allen ! You 
know I think you are a gentleman, and I always 
did ! " 

Mr. Richards, languidly; "Oh, I merely had 
your word for it, just now, that you didn't." 
Tenderly, " Will you hear me, Lucy ? " 

Miss Galhraith, faintly: "Yes.'^ 

Mr. Richards: "Well, what is it Tve done? 
Will you tell me if I guess right ? " 

Miss Galhraith, with dignity: "I am in no 
humor for jesting, Allen. And I can assure you 
that though I consent to hear what you have to 
say, or ask, nothing will change my determination. 
All is over between us." 

Mr. Richards: "Yes, I understand that, per- 
fectly. I am now asking merely for general in- 
formation. I do not expect you to relent, and, 
in fact, I should consider it rather frivolous if you 
did. No. What I have always admired in your 
character, Lucy, is a firm, logical consistency; a 
clearness of mental vision that leaves no side of 
a subject unsearched; and an unwavering con- 



AND OTHER FARCES. 27 

stancy of purpose. You may say that these traits 
are characteristic of all women ; but they are pre- 
eminently characteristic of you, Lucy." Miss 
Galbraith looks askance at him, to make out 
whether he is in earnest or not ; he continues, 
with a perfectly serious air. *'And I know now 
that if you're offended with me, it's for no trivial 
cause." She stirs uncomfortably in her chair. 
" What I have done I can't imagine, but it must be 
something monstrous, since it has made life with 
me appeal so impossible that you are ready to fling 
away your own happiness — for I know you did 
love me, Lucy — and destroy mine. I will begin 
with the worst thing I can think of. Was it be- 
cause I danced so much with Fanny Watervliet ? " 

Miss Galbraith, indignantly : " How can you 
insult me by supposing that I could be jealous of 
such a perfect little goose as that ? No, Allen ! 
Whatever I think of you, I still respect you too 
much for that.'^ 

Mr. Richards : ^' I'm glad to hear that there are 
yet depths to which you think me incapable of 
descending, and that Miss Watervliet is one of 
them. I will now take a little higher ground. 
Perhaps you think I flirted with Mrs. Dawes. I 



28 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

thought, myself, that the thing might begin to 
have that appearance, but I give you my word of 
honor that as soon as the idea occurred to me, I 
dropped her — rather rudely, too. The trouble 
was, don't you know, that I felt so perfectly safe 
with a married friend of yours. I couldn't be 
hanging about you all the time, and I was afraid I 
might vex you if I went with the other girls ; and 
I didn't know what to do." 

Miss Galbraith : " I think you behaved rathei- 
silly, giggling so much with her. But " — 

Mr. Richards : "I own it, I know it was silly. 
But " — 

Miss Galbraith : " It wasn't that ; it wasn't 
that ! " 

Mr. Richards : " Was it my forgetting to bring 
you those things from your mother ? " 

Miss Galbraith : " No ! " 

Mr. Richards : " Was it because I hadn't given 
up smoking yet ? " 

Miss Galbraith : " You know I never asked you 
to give up smoking. It was entirely your own 
proposition." 

Mr. Richards : " That's true. That's what made 
me so easy about it. I knew I could leave it off 



AND OTHER FARCES. 29 

any time. Well, I will not disturb you any longer, 
Miss Galbraith." He throws his overcoat across 
his arm, and takes up his travelling-bag. " I have 
failed to guess your fatal — conundrum ; and I 
have no longer any excuse for remaining. I am 
going into the smoking-car. Shall I send the 
porter to you for anything ? " 

Miss Galhraith : " No, thanks." She puts up 
her handkerchief to her face. 

Mr. Richards : " Lucy, do you send me away ? " 

Miss Galbraith, behind her handkerchief : •' You 
were going, yourself." 

Mr. Richards, over his shoulder : " Shall I come 
back ? " 

Miss Galhraith : " I have no right to drive you 
from the car." 

Mr. Richards, coming back, and sitting down in 
the chair nearest her : " Lucy, dearest, tell me 
what's the matter." 

Miss Galhraith : " Allen ! your not knowing 
makes it all the more hopeless and killing. It 
shows me that we must part ; that you would go 
on, breaking my heart, and grinding me into the 
dust as long as we lived." She sobs. " It shows 
me that you never understood me, and you never 



30 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

will. I know you're good and kind and all that, 
but that only makes your not understanding me 
so much the worse. I do it quite as much for your 
sake as my own, Allen." 

Mr. Richards : " I'd much rather you wouldn't 
put yourself out on my account." 

Miss Galhraith, without regarding him : " If 
you could mortify me before a whole roomful of 
people, as you did last night, what could I expect 
after marriage but continual insult ? " 

Mr. Eichards, in amazement : " Hoia did I 
mortify you ? I thought that I treated you with 
all the tenderness and affection that a decent re- 
gard for the feelings of others would allow. I was 
ashamed to find I couldn't keep away from you." 

Miss Galbraith : " Oh, you were attentive enough, 
Allen ; nobody denies that. Attentive enough 
in non-essentials. Oh, yes ! " 

Mr. Richards : " Well, what vital matters did I 
fail in ? I'm sure I can't remember." 

Miss Galbraith : " I dare say ! I dare say they 
won't appear vital to you, Allen. Nothing does. 
And if I had told you, I should have been met 
with ridicule, I suppose. But I knew better than 
to tell ; I respected myself too much,^' 



AND OTHER FAECES. 31 

Mr. Richards : " But now you mustn't respect 
yourself quite so mucli, dearest. And I promise 
you I won't laugli at the most serious thing. I'm 
in no humor for it. If it were a matter of life 
and death, even, I can assure you that it wouldn't 
bring a smile to my countenance. No, indeed ! 
If you expect me to laugh, now, you must say 
something particularly funny." 

Mi»s Galbraith : " I was not going to say any- 
thing funny, as you call it, and I will say nothing 
at all, if you talk in that way." 

Mr. Richards : " Well, I won't, then. But do 
you know what I suspect, Lucy ? I wouldn't men- 
tion it to everybody, but I will to you — in strict 
confidence : I suspect that you're rather ashamed 
of your grievance, if you have any. I suspect it's 
nothing at all." 

Miss Galbraith, very sternly at first, with a 
rising hysterical inflection : " Nothing, Allen ! Do 
you call it nothing, to have Mrs. Dawes come out 
with all that about your accident on your way up 
the river, and ask me if it didn't frighten me 
terribly to hear of it, even after it was all over ; 
and I had to say you hadn't told me a word of it ? 
^ Why, Lucy ! ' " — angrily mimicking Mrs. Dawes, 



32 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

— " ^ you must teach, him better than that. I make 
Mr. Dawes tell me everything.' Little simpleton ! 
And then to have them all laugh — Oh, dear, it's 
too much ! " 

Mr. Richards : " Why, my dear Lucy " — 

Miss Galbraith, interrupting him : " I saw just 
how it was going to be, and I'm thankful, thankful 
that it happened. I saw that you didn't care 
enough for me to take me into your whole life ; 
that you despised and distrusted me, and that it 
would get worse and worse to the end of our days ; 
that we should grow farther and farther apart, 
and I should be left moping at home, while you 
ran about making confidantes of other women 
whom you considered worthy of your confidence. 
It all flashed upon me in an instant ; and I 
resolved to break with you, then and there ; and 
I did, just as soon as ever I could go to my room 
for your things, and I'm glad, — yes, — Oh, hu, hu, 
hu, hu, hu ! — so glad I did it ! " 

Mr, Richards, grimly : " Your joy is obvious. 
May I ask" — 

Miss Galhraith : " Oh, it wasn't the first proof 
you had given me how little you really cared for 
me, but I was determined it should be the last. I 



AND OTHER FARCES. 33 

dare say you've forgotten them ! I dare say you 
don't remember telling Mamie Morris that you 
didn't like embroidered cigar-cases, when you'd just 
told me that you did, and let me be such a fool as 
to commence one for you ; but I'm thankful to 
say that went into the fire, — oh, yes, instantly I 
And I dare say you've forgotten that you didn't 
tell me your brother's engagement was to be kept, 
and let me come out with it that night at the 
Eudges', and then looked perfectly aghast, so that 
everybody thought I had been blabbing ! Time 
and again, Allen, you have made me suffer agonies, 
yes, agonies ; but your power to do so is at an 
end. I am free and happy at last." She weeps 
bitterly. 

Mr. Richards, quietly: "Yes, I had forgotten 
those crimes, and I suppose many similar atrocities. 
I own it, I am forgetful and careless. I was wrong 
about those things. I ought to have told you why 
I said that to Miss Morris : I was afraid she was 
going to work me one. As to that accident I told 
Mrs. Dawes of, it wasn't worth mentioning. Our 
boat simply walked over a sloop in the night, and 
nobody was hurt. I shouldn't have thought twice 
about it, if she hadn't happened to brag of their 



34 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

passing close to an iceberg on tlieir way home 
from Europe ; then I trotted out my pretty-near 
disaster as a match for hers, — confound her ! I 
wish the iceberg had sunk them ! Only it wouldn't 
have sunk her, — she's so light ; she'd have gone 
bobbing about all over the Atlantic Ocean, like a 
cork; she's got a perfect life-preserver in that 
mind of hers." Miss Galhraith gives a little 
laugh, and then a little moan. " But since you are 
happy, I will not repine, Miss Galbraith. I don't 
pretend to be very happy myself, but then, I don't 
deserve it. Since you are ready to let an abso- 
lutely unconscious offence on my part cancel all 
the past ; since you let my devoted love weigh as 
nothing against the momentary pique that a 
malicious little rattle-pate — she was vexed at my 
leaving her — could make you feel, and choose to 
gratify a wicked resentment at the cost of any 
suffering to me, why, / can be glad and happy too." 
With rising anger, " Yes, Miss Galbraith. All is 
over between us. You can go ! I renounce you ! " 

Miss Galbraith^ springing fiercely to her feet: 
" Go, indeed ! Eenounce me ! Be so good as to 
remember that you haven't got me to renounce ! " 

Mr. Richards: "Well, it's all the same thing. 



AND OTHER FARCES. 35 

I'd renounce you if I had. Good-evening, Miss 
Galbraith. I will send back your presents as soon 
as I get to town j it won't be necessary to acknowl- 
edge them. I hope we may never meet again." 
He goes out of the door towards the front of the 
car, but returns directly, and glances uneasily at 
Miss Galbraith, who remains with her handker- 
chief pressed to her eyes. " Ah — a — that is — 
I shall be obliged to intrude upon you again. The 
fact is " — 

Miss Galbraith, anxiously : " Why, the cars have 
stopped ! Are we at Schenectady ? " 

Mr. Richards : " "Well, no ; not exactly ; not 
exactly at Schenectady'''' — 

Miss Galbraith : " Then what station is this ? 
Have they carried me by ? " Observing his em- 
barrassment, " Allen, what is the matter ? What 
lias happened ? Tell me instantly ! Are we off 
the track ? Have we run into another train ? 
Have we broken through a bridge ? Shall we be 
burnt alive ? Tell me, Allen, tell me, — I can bear 
it ! — are we telescoped ? " She wrings her hands 
in terror. 

Mr. Richards, unsympathetically : " Kothing of 
the kind has happened. This car has simply come 



36 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

uncoupled, and the rest of the train has gone on 
ahead, and left us standing on the track, nowhere 
in particular." He leans back in his chair, and 
wheels it round from her. 

Miss Galbralth, mortified, yet anxious : " Well ? " 

Mr. Richards: "Well, until they miss us, and 
run back to pick us up, I shall be obliged to ask 
your indulgence. I will try not to disturb you; 
I would go out and stand on the platform, but 
it's raining." 

Miss Galbraith, listening to the rain-fall on 
the roof : " Why, so it is ! " Timidly, " Did you 
notice when the car stopped ? " 

Mr. Richards: "No." He rises and goes out 
at the rear door, comes back, and sits down 
again. 

Miss Galbraith, rises, and goes to the large 
mirror to wipe away her tears. She glances at 
Mr. Richards, who does not move. She sits down 
in a seat nearer him than the chair she has left. 
After some faint murmurs and hesitations, she 
asks, " Will you please tell me why you went out 
just now ? " 

Mr. Richards, with indifference : " Yes. I went 
to see if the rear signal was out." 



AND OTHER FARCES. 37 

Miss Galbraith, after another hesitation : 
a Why ? " 

Mr. Richards : " Because, if it wasn't out, some 
train might run into us from that direction." 

Miss Galhraith, tremulously : " Oh ! And was it V 

Mr. Richards, dryly : " Yes." 

Miss Galhraith returns to her former place, 
with a wounded air, and for a moment neither 
speaks. Finally she asks very meekly, " And 
there's no danger from the front ? " 

Mr. Richards, coldly : " No." 

Miss Galhraith, after some little noises and 
movements meant to catch Mr. Richards' s atten- 
tion: "Of course, I never meant to imply that 
you were intentionally careless or forgetful." 

Mr. Richards, still very coldly : " Thank you." 

Miss Galhraith: "I always did justice to your 
good-heartedness, Allen; you're perfectly lovely 
that way ; and I know that you would be sorry if 
you knew you had wounded my feelings, however 
accidentally." She droops her head so as to catch 
a sidelong glimpse of his face, and sighs, while 
she nervously pinches the top of her parasol, 
resting the point on the floor. Mr. Richards 
makes no answer. "That about the cigar-case 



38 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

might have been a mistake; I saw that myself, 
and, as you explain it, why, it was certainly very 
kind and very creditable to — to your thoughtful- 
ness. It was thoughtful ! " 

Mr. Richards: "I am grateful for your good 
opinion." 

Miss Galhraith : " But do you think it was ex- 
actly — it was quite — nice, not to tell me that 
your brother's engagement was to be kept, when 
you know, Allen, I can't bear to blunder in such 
things?" Tenderly, ''Do you? You canH say 
it was ? " 

Mr. Richards : " I never said it was." 

Miss Galhraith, plaintively : " No, Allen. That's 
what I always admired in your character. You 
always owned up. Don't you think it's easier for 
men to own up than it is for women ? " 

Mr. Richards: "I don't know. I never knew 
any woman to do it." 

Miss Galhraith : " Oh, yes, Allen ! You know I 
often own up." 

Mr. Richards : " No, I don't." 
• Miss Galhraith : " Oh, how can you bear to say 
so? When I'm rash, or anything of that kind, 
you know I acknowledge it." 



AND OTHER FARCES. 39 

Mr. Richards : " Do you acknowledge it now ? " 

3Iiss Galbraith : " Why, how can I, when I 
haven't been rash ? What have I been rash 
about ? " 

M7\ Hichards: "About the cigar-case, for ex- 
ample." 

Miss Galbraith : " Oh ! that ! That was a great 
while ago ! I thought you meant something quite 
recent." A sound as of the approaching train is 
heard in the distance. She gives a start, and 
then leaves her chair again for one a little nearer 
his. " I thought perhaps you meant about — last 
night." 

Mr. Richards : " Well." 

Miss Galbraith, very judicially : " I don't think 
it was rash, exactly. No, not rash. It might not 
have been very kind not to — to — trust you more, 
when I knew that you didn't mean anything; 
but — No, I took the only course I could. No- 
body could have done differently under the circum- 
stances. But if I caused you any pain, I 'm very 
sorry ; oh, yes, very sorry indeed. But I was not 
precipitate, and I know I did right. At least I 
tried to act for the best. Don't you believe I 
did?" 



40 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

Mr, Richards: ^^Why, if you have no doubt 
upon the subject, my opinion is of no conse- 
quence." 

Miss Galhraith : " Yes. But what do you think? 
If you think differently, and can make me see it 
differently, oughtn't you to do so ? " 

Mr. Richai'ds : " I don't see why. As you say, 
all is over between us.'' 

Miss Galbraith : "Yes." After a pause, "I 
should suppose you would care enough for your- 
self to wish me to look at the matter from the 
right point of view." 

Mr. Richards : " I don't." 

Miss Galhraith, becoming more and more un- 
easy as the noise of the approaching train grows 
louder : " I think you have been very quick with 
me at times, quite as quick as I could have been 
with you last night." The noise is more distinctly 
heard. "I'm sure that if I could once see it as 
you do, no one would be more willing to do 
anything in their power to atone for their rash- 
ness. Of course I know that everything is 
over." 

Mr. Richards : " As to that, I have your word ; 
and, in view of the fact, perhaps this analysis of 



AND OTHER FARCES. 41 

motive, of character, however interesting on gen- 
eral grounds, is a little " — 

Miss Galbraith, with sudden violence : " Say it, 
and take your revenge ! I have put myself at 
your feet, and you do right to trample on me ! 
Oh, this is what women may expect when they 
trust to men's generosity ! Well, it is over now, 
and I'm thankful, thankful ! Cruel, suspicious, 
vindictive, you're all alike, and I'm glad that I'm 
no longer subject to your heartless caprices. And 
I don't care what happens after this, I shall 
always — Oh ! You're sure it's from the front, 
Allen ? Are you sure the rear signal is out ? " 

Mr. Richards, relenting: "Yes, but if it will 
ease your mind, I'll go and look again." He rises, 
and starts towards the rear door. 

31iss Galbraith, quickly : " Oh, no ! Don't go ! 
I can't bear to be left alone ! " The sound of the 
approaching train continually increases in volume. 
" Oh, isn't it coming very, very, very fast ? " 

Mr. Richards : " No, no ! Don't be frightened." 

Miss Galbraith, running towards the rear door. 
" Oh, I must get out ! It will kill me, I know it 
will. Come with me ! Do, do ! " He runs after 
her, and her voice is heard at the rear of the car. 



42 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

"Oh, the outside door is locked, and we are 
trapped, trapped, trapped ! Oh, quick ! Let's try 
the door at the other end." They re-enter the 
parlor, and the roar of the train announces that 
it is upon them. " No, no ! It's too late, it's too 
late ! I'm a wicked, wicked girl, and this is all 
to punish me ! Oh, it's coming, it's coming at full 
speed ! " He remains bewildered, confronting her. 
She utters a wild cry, and as the train strikes the 
car with a violent concussion, she flings herself 
into his arms. " There, there ! Forgive me, 
Allen ! Let us die together, my own, own love ! " 
She hangs fainting on his breast. Voices are 
heard without, and after a little delay The Porter 
comes in with a lantern. 

Porter : " Rather more of a jah than we meant 
to give you, sah ! We had to run down pretty 
quick after we missed you, and the rain made the 
track a little slippery. Lady much frightened ? " 

Miss Galbraith, disengaging herself: "Oh, not 
at all ! Not in the least. We thought it was a 
train coming from behind, and going to run into 
us, and so — we — I " — 

Porter: "Not quite so bad as that. We'll be 
into Schenectady in a few minutes, miss. I'll 



AND OTHER FARCES. 43 

come for your things." He goes out at the other 
door. 

Miss Galhraith, in a fearful whisper : " Allen ! 
What will he ever think of us ? I'm sure he saw 
us!" 

Mr. Richards : " I don't know what he'll think 
now. He did think you were frightened ; but you 
told him you were not. However, it isn't im- 
portant what he thinks. Probably he thinks I'm 
your long-lost brother. It had a kind of family 
look." 

Miss Galhraith : " Eidiculous ! " 

Mr. Richards : " Why, he'd never suppose that 
I was a jilted lover of yours ! " 

Miss Galhraith, TueixxWj : "No." 

Mr. Richards: "Come, Lucy," — taking her 
hand, — "you wished to die with me, a moment 
ago. Don't you think you can make one more 
effort to live with me ? I won't take advantage 
of words spoken in mortal peril, but I suppose 
you were in earnest when you called me your own 
__own"— Her head droops; he folds her in 
his arms a moment, then she starts away from 
him, as if something had suddenly occurred to 
her. 



44 THE SLEEPESTG-CAK 

Miss Galhraith : ^^ Allen, where are you going ? " 

Mr. Richards : " Going ? Upon my soul, I 
haven't the least idea." 

Miss Galhraith : " Where were you going ? " 

Mr. Richards : " Oh, I was going to Albany." 

Miss Galhraith: "Well, don't! Aunt Mary is 
expecting me here at Schenectady, — I telegraphed 
her, — and I want you to stop here, too, and we'll 
refer the whole matter. to her. She's such a wise 
old head. I'm not sure " — 

Mr. Richards : " What ? " 

Miss Galhraith, demurely : " That I'm good 
enough for you." 

Mr. Richards, starting, in burlesque of her move- 
ment, as if a thought had struck hivi: "Lucy! 
how came you on this train when you left 
Syracuse on the morning express ? " 

Miss Galhraith, faintly : " I waited over a train 
at Utica." She sinks into a chair, and averts her 
face. 

Mr. Richards : " May I ask why ? " 

Miss Galhraith, more faintly still : " I don't 
like to tell. I" — 

Mr. Richards, coming and standing in front of 
her, with his hands in his pockets: "Look me 



AND OTHER FARCES. 45 

in the eye, Lucy ! " She drops her veil over her 
face, and looks up at him. "Did you — did you 
expect to find me on this train ? " 

Miss Galhraith : " I was afraid it never would 
get along, — it was so late ! " 

Mr, Richards : " Don't — tergiversate." 

Miss Galbraith : " Don't what ? " 

Mr. Richards : " Fib." 

Miss Galbraith : " Not for worlds ! " 

Mr. Richards : " How did you know I was in 
this car ? " 

Miss Galbraith : " Must I ? I thought I saw 
you through the window; and then I made sure 
it was you when I went to pin my veil on, — I 
saw you in the mirror." 

Mr. Richards, after a little silence : " Miss Gal- 
braith, do you want to know what you are ? " 

Miss Galbraith, softly : " Yes, Allen." 

Mr. Richards : " You're a humbug ! " 

Miss Galbraith, springing from her seat, and 
confronting him. " So are you ! You pretended 
to be asleep ! " 

Mr. Richards : "I — I — I was taken by sur- 
prise. I had to take time to think." 

Miss Galbraith : " So did I." 



46 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

Mr. Richards : " And you thought it would h^ 
a good plan to /get your polonaise caught in the 
window ? " j 

Miss Galhrakth, hiding her face on his shoulder : 
"No, no, Allen! That I never will admit. No 
woman would ! '' 

Mr. Richards: "Oh, I dare say!" After a 
pause : " Well, I am a poor, weak, helpless man, 
with no one to advise me or counsel me, and 
I have been cruelly deceived. How could you, 
Lucy, how could you? I can never get over 
this.'' He drops his head upon her shoulder. 

Miss Galhraith, starting away again, and look- 
ing about the car: "Allen, I have an idea! Do 
you suppose Mr. Pullman could be induced to sell 
this car ? " 

Mr. Richards : " Why ? '' 

Miss Galhraith: "Why, because I think it's 
perfectly lovely, and I should like to live in it 
always. It could be fitted up for a sort of 
summer-house, don't you know, and we could have 
it in the garden, and you could smoke in it." 

Mr. Richards : " Admirable ! It would look 
just like a travelling photographic saloon. No, 
Lucy, we won't buy it; we will simply keep it 



AND OTHEH FAECES. 47 

as a precious souvenir, a sacred memory, a beauti- 
ful dream, — and let it go on fulfilling its desxiny 
all the same." 

Porter, entering, and gathering up Miss Gal- 
hraith^s things : " Be at Schenectady in half a 
minute, miss. Won't have much time." 

Miss Galhrcdth, rising, and adjusting her dress, 
and then looking about the car, while she passes 
her hand through her lover's arm : " Oh, I do 
hate to leave it. Farewell, you dear, kind, good, 
lovely car! May you never have another acci- 
dent ! " She kisses her hand to the car, upon 
which they both look back as they slowly leave 
it. 

Mr. Richards, kissing his hand in the like man- 
ner : " Good-by, sweet chariot ! May you never 
carry any but bridal couples ! " 

Miss Galbraith : " Or engaged ones ! " 

Mr. Richards : " Or husbands going home to their 
wives ! " 

Miss Galbraith : " Or wives hastening to their 
husbands." 

Mr. Richards: "Or young ladies who have 
waited one train over, so as to be with the young 
men they hate." 



48 THE SLEEPING-CAR. 

Miss Galhraith : " Or young men who are so 
indifferent that they pretend to be asleep when 
the young ladies come in ! " They pause at the 
door and look back again. " ^ And must I leave 
thee, Paradise ? ^ " They both kiss their hands to 
the car again, and, their faces being very close 
together, they impulsively kiss each other. Then 
Miss Galhraith throws back her head, and solemnly 
confronts him. " Only think, Allen ! If this car 
hadn't broken its engagement, we might never 
have mended ours." 



THE SLEEPING-CAR. 

FARCE. 



THE SLEEPING-CAR. 



Scene: One side of a sleeping-car on the Boston 
and Albany Eoad. The curtains are drawn 
before most of the berths : from the hooks and 
rods hang hats, bonnets, bags, bajidboxes, um- 
brellas, and other travelling-gear: on the floor 
are boots of both sexes, set out for The Porter 
to black. The Porter is making up the beds in 
the upper and lower berths adjoining the seats 
on which a^oung mother, slender and pretty, 
with a baby asleep on the seat beside her, and a 
stout old lady, sit confronting each other- Jfrs. 
Agnes Roberts and her Aunt Mary. 

Mrs. Roberts: "Do you always take down your 
back hair, aunty ? " 

Aunt Mary: "No, never, child; at least not 
since I had such a fright about it once, coming on 
from New York. It's all well enough to take 
51 



62 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

down your back hair if it is yours ; but if it isn't, 
your head's the best place for it. Now, as I buy 
mine of Madame Pierrot '' — 

Mrs. Roberts: "Don't you ivish she wouldn't 
advertise it as human hair ? It sounds so pokerish' 
— like human flesh, you know." 

Aunt Mary : " Why, she couldn't call it mliuman 
hair, my dear." 

Mrs. Eoberts, thoughtfully: "No — just /kuV." 

Aunt Mary : " Then people might think it was 
for mattresses. But, as I was saying, I took it off 
that night, and tucked it safely away, as I sup- 
posed, in my pocket, and I slept sweetly till about 
midnight, when I happened to open my eyes, and 
saw something long and black crawl off my bed 
and slip under the berth. Such a shriek as I gave, 
my dear ! '• A snake ! a snake ! oh, a snake ! ' 
And everybody began talking at once, and some 
of the gentlemen swearing, and the porter came 
running with the poker to kill it ; and all the 
while it was that ridiculous switch of mine, that 
had worked out of my pocket. And glad enough 
I was to grab it up before anybody saw it, and say 
I must have been dreaming." 

Mrs. Roberts : " Why, aunty, how funny ! How 



AND OTHER FARCES. 53 

eoulcl you suppose a serpent could get on board a 
sleeping-car, of all places in the world ? " 

Aunt Mary : " That was the perfect absurdity of 
it." 

The Porter : " Berths ready now, ladies/' 
Mrs. Roberts, to The Porter, who walks away to 
the end of the car, and sits down near the door : 
" Oh, thank you ! — Aunty, do you feel nervous the 
least bit ? " 

Aunt Mary : " Nervous ? No. Why ? " 
Mrs. Roberts : " Well, I don't know. I suppose 
I've been worked up a little about meeting Willis, 
and wondering how he'll look, and all. We can't 
know each other, of course. It doesn't stand to 
reason that if he's been out there for twelve years, 
ever since I was a child, though we've corresponded 
regularly — at least / have — that he could recog- 
nize me ; not at the first glance, you know. He'll 
have a full beard; and then I've got married, and 
here's the baby. Oh, no! he'll never guess who 
it is in the world. Photographs really amount to 
nothing in such a case. I wish we were at home, 
and it was all over. I wish he had written some 
particulars, instead of telegraphing from Ogden, 
*Be with you on the 7 a.m., Wednesday.'" 



54 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

Aimt Ilary : " Calif ornians always telegraph, 
my dear; they never think of writing. It isn't 
expensive enough, and it doesn't make your blood 
run cold enough, to get a letter, and so they send 
you one of those miserable yellow despatches | 
whenever they can — those printed in a long 
string, if possible, so that you'll be sure to die 
before you get to the end of it. I suppose your 
brother has fallen into all those ways, and says 
^reckon' and 'ornary' and 'which the same,' just 
like one of Mr. Bret Harte's characters." 

Mrs. Roberts : "But it isn't exactly our not 
knowing each other, aunty, that's worrying me; 
that's something that could be got over in time. 
What is simply driving me distracted is Willis and 
Edward meeting there when I'm away from home. 
Oh, how could I be away ! and why couldnH 
Willis have given us fair warning ? I would have 
hurried from the ends of the earth to meet him. 
I don't believe poor Edward ever saw a Califor- 
nian ; and he's so quiet and pre-occupied, I'm sure 
he'd never get on with Willis. And if Willis is 
the least loud, he wouldn't like Edward. Not that 
I suppose he is loud ; but I don't believe he knows 
anything about literary men. But you can see, 



AND OTHER FARCES. 55 

aunty, can't you, how very anxious I must be ? 
Don't you see that I ought to have been there 
when Willis and Edward met, so as to — to — well, 
to break them to each other, don't you know ? " 
P Aunt Mary: ^^ Oh, you needn't be troubled 
about that, Agnes. I dare say they've got on 
perfectly well together. Very likely they're sit- 
ting down to the unwholesomest hot supper this 
instant that the ingenuity of man could invent." 

Mrs. Roberts: "Oh, do you think they are, 
aunty? Oh, if I could onlij believe they were 
sitting down to a hot supper together now, I should 
be so happy ! They'd be sure to get. on if they 
were. There's nothing like eating to make men 
friendly with each other. Don't you know, at 
receptions, how they never have anything to say 
to each other till the escalloped oysters and the 
chicken salad appear; and then how sweet they 
are as soon as they've helped the ladies to ice ? 
Oh, thank you, thank you, aunty, for thinking of 
the hot supper ! It's such a relief to my mind ! 
You can understand, can't you, aunty dear, how 
anxious I must have been to have my only brother 
and my only — my husband — get on nicely to- 
gether ? My life would be a wreck, simply a 



56 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

wreck, if they didn't. And Willis and I not 

having seen each other since I was a child makes 

it all the worse. I do hope they're sitting down to 

L a hot supper.'^ 

\y\ An angry Voice from the next berth but one : " I 

wish people in sleeping-cars " — 
VjL A Voice from the berth beyond that: "You're 
mistaken in your premises, sir. This is a waking- 
car. Ladies, go on, and oblige an eager listener." 
, Sensation, and smothered laughter from the other 
berths^ 

Mrs. Roberts, after a space of terrified silence, 
in a loud whisper to her Aunt: "What horrid 
things ! But now we really must go to bed. It 
was too bad to keep talking. I'd no idea my voice 
was getting so loud. Which berth will you have,, 
aunty ? I'd better take the upper one, because " — 

Aunt Mary, whispering : " No, no ; I must take 
that, so that you can be with the baby below." 

Mrs. Roberts: "Oh, how good you are. Aunt 
Mary ! It's too bad ; it is really. I can't let 
you." 

Aunt Mary : " Well, then, you must ; that's all. 
You know how that child tosses and kicks about 
in the night. You never can tell where his head's 



AND OTHER FAECES. 



57 



going to be in the morning, but you'll probably 
find it at the foot of the bed. I couldn't sleep an 
instant, my dear, if I thought that boy was in the 
upper berth; for Td be sure of his tumbling out 
over you. Here, let me lay him down." She lays 
the baby in the lower berth. "There ! Now get in, 
Agnes — do, and leave me to my struggle with the 
attraction of gravitation." 

Mrs. Roberts: "Oh, poor aunty, how will you 
ever manage it ? I must help you up." 

Aunt Mary: "No, my dear; don't be foolish. 
But you may go and call the porter, if you like. 
I dare say he's used to it." 

Mrs. Roberts goes and speaks timidly to The 
Porter, who fails at first to understand, then smiles 
broadly, accepts a quarter with a duck of his head, 
and comes forward to Aunt Mary's side: "Had 
he better give you his hand to rest your foot in, 
while you spring up as if you were mounting 
horseback ? " 

Aunt Mary, with disdain: ''Spring! My dear, 
I haven't sprung for a quarter of a century. I 
shall require every fibre in the man's body. His 
hand, indeed ! You get in first, Agnes." 
Mrs. Roberts: "I will, aunty dear; but" — 



58 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

Aunt Mary, sternly: "Agnes, do as I say." 
Mrs. Roberts crouclies down on the lower berth. 
"I don't choose that any member of my family 
shall witness my contortions. Don't you look." 

Mrs. Roberts : " No, no, aunty." 

Aunt Mary : " Now, porter, are you strong ? " 

Porter : " I used to be porter at a Saratoga hotel, 
and carried up de ladies' trunks dere." 

Aunt Mary : " Then you'll do, I think. Now, 
then, your knee ; now your back. There ! And 
very handsomely done; thanks." 

Mrs. Roberts : " Are you really in, Aunt Mary ? " 

Aunt Mary, dryly : " Yes. Good-night." 

Mrs. Roberts : " Good-night, aunty." After a 
pause of some minutes. " Aunty ! " 

Aunt Mary : " Well, what ? " 

Mrs. Roberts: "Do you think it's perfectly 
safe ? " She rises in her berth, and looks up over 
the edge of the upper. 

Aunt Mary : " I suppose so. It's a well-managed 
road. They've got the air-brake, I've heard, and 
the Miller platform, and all those horrid things. 
What makes you introduce such unpleasant sub- 
jects ? " 

Mrs. Roberts : " Oh, I don't mean accidents. But, 



AND OTHER FARCES. 59 

you know, when you turn, it does creak so awfully. 
I shouldn't mind myself ; but the baby " — 

Aunt Mary: "Why, child, do you think I'm 
going to break through ? I couldn't. I'm one of 
the lightest sleepers in the world." 

Mrs. Roberts: "Yes, I know you're a light 
sleeper ; but — but it doesn't seem quite the same 
thing, somehow." 

Aunt Mary: "But it is; it's quite the same 
thing, and you can be perfectly easy in your mind, 
my dear. I should be quite as loath to break 
through as you would to have me. Good-night." 

Mrs. Roberts : " Yes ; good-night. — Aunty ! " 

Aunt Mary: "Well?" 

Mrs. Roberts: "You ought to just see him, 
how he's lying. He's a perfect log. CouldnH you 
just bend over, and peep down at him a moment ? " 

Aunt Mary: "Bend over! It would be the 
death of me. Good-night." 

Mrs. Roberts: "Good-night. Did you put the 
glass into my bag, or yours ? I feel so very 
thirsty, and I want to go and get some water. I'm 
sure I don't know why I should be thirsty. Are 
you. Aunt Mary ? Ah ! here it is. Don't disturb 
yourself, aunty ; I've found it. It was in my bag, 



60 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

just where I'd put it myself. But all this trouble 
about Willis has made me so fidgety that I don't 
know where anything is. And now I don't know 
how to manage about the baby while I go after the 
water. He's sleeping soundly enough now ; but if 
he should happen to get into one of his rolling 
moods, he might tumble out on to the floor. Never 
mind, aunty, I've thought of something. I'll just 
barricade him with these bags and shawls. Now, 
old fellow, roll as much as you like. If you should 
happen to hear him stir, aunty, won't you — 
Aunty ! Oh, dear ! she's asleep already ; and what 
shall I do ? " rWhile Mrs. Roberts continues talk- 
ing, various notes of protest, profa ne and other- 
wise, make themselves heard from different berths. 
^' I know. I'll make a bold dash for the water, 
and be back in an instant, baby. Now, don't you 
move, you little rogue." She runs to the waters 
tank at the end of the car, and then back to her 
berth. "Now, baby, here's mamma again. Are 
you all right, mamma's own ? " A shaggy head 
and bearded face are thrust from the curtains of 
the next berth. 

The Stranger: "Look here, ma'am. I don't 
want to be disagreeable about this thing, and I 



AND OTHER FAECES. 61 

hope you won't take any offence ; but the fact is, 
I'm half dead for want of sleep, and if you'll only, 
keep quiet now a little while, I'll promise not to 
speak above my breath if ever I find you on a 
sleeping-car after you've come straight through^ 
from San Erancisco, day and night, and not beeri 
able to get more than about a quarter of youi' 
usual allowance of rest — I will indeed." 

Mrs. Hoberts : " I'm very sorry that I've dis- 
turbed you, and I'll try to be more quiet. I 
didn't suppose I was speaking so loud; but the 
cars keep up such a rattling that you never can 
tell how loud you are speaking. Did I under- 
stand you to say that you were from California ? '' 

The Californian : " Yes, ma'an^." 

Mrs. Roberts : " San Francisco ? " 

The Californian : ^' Yes, ma'ank" 

Mrs. Roberts : " Thanks. It's a terribly long 
journey, isn't it ? I know quite how to feel for 
you» I've a brother myself coming on. In fact, 
we expected him before this." She scans his face 
as sharply as the lamplight will allow, and con- 
tinues, after a brief hesitation. "It's always such 
a silly question to ask a person, and I suppose 
Ban Francisco is a large place, with a great many 



^3N 



62 THE SLEEPING-CAK 



people always coming and going, so that it would 
be only one chance in a thousand if you did." 

The Calif ornian, patiently: "Did what, 
ma'am ? " 

Mrs. Boherts : " Oh, I was just wondering if it 
was possible — but of course, it isn't, and it's very 
flat to ask — that you'd ever happened to meet 
my brother there. His name is Willis Campbell." 

The Californian, with more interest : " Camp- 
bell ? Campbell ? Yes, I know a man of that 
name. But I disremember his first name. Little . 
low fellow — pretty chunky ? " , 

Mrs. Roberts : " I don't know. Do you mean 
short and stout ? " 

The Californian : " Yes, ma'am." 

Mrs. Roberts : " I'm sure I can't tell. It's a 
great many years since he went out there, and 
I've never seen him in all that time. I thought 
if you did happen to know him — He's a 
lawyer." 

The Californian : " It's quite likely I know 
him ; and in the morning, ma'am " — 

Mrs. Roberts : " Oh, excuse me. I'm very sorry 
to have kept you so long awake with my silly 
questions.'^ 



AND OTHER FARCES. 63 

The Man in the Upper Berth : ^' Don't apologize, 
madam. I'oi not a Californian myself, but I'm an 
orph;in, and away from home, and I thank you, on 
behalf of all our fellow-passengers, for the mental 
refreshment that your conversation has afforded 
us. / could lie here, and listen to it all night ; 
but there are invalids in some of these berths, 
and perhaps on then account it will be as well to 
defer everything till the morning, as our friend 
suggests. Allow mo to wish you pleasant dreams,^ 
madam." 

The Californian, while Mrs. Roberts shrinks 
back under the curi ain of her berth in dismay, and 
stammers f^:-'>^ ir aliblo excuse, slowly emerges 
full length from, ius berth : " Don't you mind me, 
ma'am; I've got everything but my boots and 
coat on. Now, then," standing beside the berth, 
and looking in upon the man in the upper tier. 
" You ! Do you know that this is a lady you're 
talking to?" 

The Upper Berth : " By your voice and your 
shaggy personal appearance I shouldn't have taken 
you for a lady — no, sir. But the light is very 
imperfect ; you may be a bearded lady." 

The Californian: "You never mind about my 



64 THE SLEI.l JN^G-CAK 

looks. The question is, Do you want lyour head 
rapped up against the side of this car ? ^' 

The Ujiper Berth: "T'ith all the frankness of 
your own Pacific Slope, no.'' 

Mrs. Roberts, hastily re-appearing : * Oh, no, 
no, don't hurt him! Hc\s not to blame. I was 
wrong to keep on talking. Oh, please don't hurt 
him ! " 

The Californian to The Upper Berth : '' You 
hear ? Well, now, don't you speak another word 
to that lady to-night. Just go on, ma'am, and free 
your mind on any little matter you like. / don't 
want any sleep. How long has your brother been 
in California ? " 

3frs. Roberts : " Oh, don't let's talk about it 
now ; I don't want to talk about it. I thought — I 
thought — Good-night. Oh, dear ! I didn't sup- 
pose I was making so much trouble. I didn't 
mean to disturb anybody. I " — Mrs. Roberts 
gives way to the excess of her confusion and mor- 
tification in a little sob, and then hides her grief 
behind the curtains of her berth. The Califor- 
nian slowly emerges again from his couch, and 
stands beside it, looking in upon the man in the 
berth above. 



AND OTHER FARCES. 65 

The Californian : " For half a cent I would rap 
your head up against that wall. Making the lady 
cry, and getting me so mad I can't sleep ! Now 
see here, you just apologize. You beg that lady's 
pardon, or I'll have you out of 4;here before 
you know yourself." Cries of "Good!" "That's 
right ! " and " Make him show himself ! " hail 
Mrs. Roberts's champion, and heads, more or less 
dishevelled, are thrust from every berth. Mrs. 
Roberts remains invisible and silent, and the loud 
and somewhat complicated respiration of her Aunt 
makes itself heard in the general hush of expect- 
ancy. A remark to the effect that " The old lady 
seems to enjoy her rest " achieves a facile ap- 
plause. The Californian again addresses the cul- 
prit. " Come, now, what do you say ? I'll give 
you just one-half a minute." 

Mrs. Roberts from her shelter: "Oh, please, 
please don't make him say anything ! It was very 
trying in me to keep him awake, and I know he 
didn't mean any offence. Oh, do let him be ! " 

The Californian : " You hear that ? You stay 
quiet the rest of the time ; and if that lady chooses 
to keep us all awake the whole night, don't you 
say a word, or I'll settle with you in the morning.'* 



66 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

Loud and continued applause, amidst which The 
Californian turns from the man in the berth 
before him, and restores order by marching along 
the aisle of the car in his stocking feet. The 
heads vanish behind the curtains. As the laughter 
subsides, he returns to his berth, and after a stare 
up and down the tranquillized car, he is about to 
retire. 

A Voice: "Oh, don't just bow! Speak!" A 
fresh burst of laughter greets this sally. The 
Californian erects himself again with an air of 
bated wrath, and then suddenly breaks into a 
helpless laugh. 

The Californian : " Gentlemen, you're too many 
for me." He gets into his berth, ajid after cries 
of " Good for California ! " '■ You're all right, 
"William Nye ! " and " You're several ahead yet ! " 
the occupants of the different berths gradually 
relapse into silence, and at last, as the car lunges 
onward through the darkness, nothing is heard but 
the rhythmical clank of the machinery, with now 
and then a burst of audible slumber from Mrs, 
Roberts's Aunt Mary, 



AND OTHER FARCES. 67 



II. 



At Worcester, where the train has made the usual 
stop, The Porter, with his lantern on his arm, 
enters the car, preceding a gentleman somewhat 
anxiously smiling ; his nervous speech contrasts 
painfully with the business-like impassiveness 
of The Porter, who refuses, with an air of in- 
credulity, to enter into the confidences which the 
gentleman seems reluctant to bestow. 

Mr. Edward Boherts : "This is the Governor 
Marcy, isn't it ? " 

The Porter: "Yes, sah." 

Mr. Boherts : " Came on from Albany, and not 
from New York ? " 

The Porter: "Yes, sah, it did.'* 

Mr. Boherts : " Ah ! it must be all right. I " — 

The Porter : " Was your wife expecting you to 
come on board here ? " 

Mr. Boherts : " Well, no, not exactly. She was 
expecting me to meet her at Boston. But I" — 



68 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

struggling to give the situation dignity, but fail- 
ing, and throwing himself, with self -convicted silli- 
ness, upon The Porter'' s mercy. "The fact is, I 
thought I would surprise her by joining her 
here." 

The Porter, refusing to have any mercy : " Oh ! 
How did you expect to find her ? " 

Mr. Roberts: "Well — well — I don't know. I 
didn't consider." He looks down the aisle in 
despair at the close-drawn curtains of the berths, 
and up at the dangling hats and bags and bonnets, 
and down at the chaos of boots of both sexes on 
the floor. " I don't know how I expected to find 
her." Mr. Roberts's countenance falls, and he 
visibly sinks so low in his own esteem and an 
imaginary public opinion that The Porter begins 
to have a little compassion. 

The Porter : " Dey's so many ladies on board I 
couldn't find her." 

Mr. Roberts : " Oh, no, no ! of course not. I 
didn't expect that." 

The Porter : " Don't like to go routing 'em all 
up, you know. I wouldn't be allowed to." 

Mr. Roberts: "I don't ask it; that would be 
preposterous." 



AND OTHER FARCES. 69 

The Porter: "What sort of looking lady was 
she ? " 

Mr. Roberts : " Well, I don't know, really. Not 
very tall, rather slight, blue eyes. I — I don't 
know what you'd call her nose. And — stop ! Oh, 
yes, she had a child with her, a little boy. Yes ! " 

The Porter, thoughtfully looking down the aisle : 
"Dey was three ladies had children. I didn't 
notice whether dey was boys or girls, or what dey 
was. Didn't have anybody with her ? '* 

Mr. Roberts : " No, no. Only the child." 

The Porter : " Well, I don't know what you are 
going to do, sah. It won't be a great while now 
till morning, you know. Here comes the conduct- 
or. Maybe he'll know what to do." Mr. Roberts 
makes some futile, inarticulate attempts to pre- 
vent The Porter from laying the case before The 
Conductor, and then stands guiltily smiling, over- 
whelmed with the hopeless absurdity of his posi- 
tion. 

The Conductor, entering the car, and stopping 
before The Porter, and looking at Mr. Roberts. 
" Gentleman want a berth ? " 

The Porter, grinning: '^Well, no, sah. He's 
lookin' for his wife." 



70 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

The Conductor, with suspicion : " Is she aboard 
this car ? " 

Mr. Roberts, striving to propitiate The Conductor 
by a dastardly amiability : " Oh, yes, yes. There's 
no mistake about the car — the Governor Marcy. 
She telegraphed the name just before you left 
Albany, so that I could find her at Boston in the 
morning. Ah ! '^ 

The Conductor: "At Boston?" Sternly: "Then 
what are you trying to find her at Worcester in the 
middle of the night for ? '^ 

Mr. Roberts : " Why — I — that is " — 

The Porter, taking compassion on Mr. Roherts^s 
inability to continue : " Says he wanted to sur- 
prise her." 

Mr. Roberts: "Ha — yes, exactly. A little 
caprice, you know." 

The Conductor: "Well, that may all be so." 
Mr. Roberts continues to smile in agonized helpless- 
ness against The Conductor's injurious tone, which 
becomes more and more offensively patronizing. 
" But I can't do anything for you. Here are all 
these people asleep in their berths, and I can't go 
round waking them up because you want to sur, 
prise your wife." 



AND OTHER FARCES. Tl 

Mr. Roberts : " No, no ; of course not. I never 
thought " — ■ 

The Conductor : " My advice to yoii is to have 
a berth made up, and go to bed till we get to 
Boston, and surprise your wife by telling her what 
you tried to do." 

M7\ Roberts, unable to resent the patronage 
of this suggestion: "Well, I don't know but I 
will." 

The Conductor, going out : " The porter will 
make up the berth for you." 

Mr. Roberts to The Porter, who is about to pull 
down the upper berth over a vacant seat : " Ah ! 
Er — I — I don't think I'll trouble you to make it 
up ; it's so near morning now. Just bring me a 
pillow, and I'll try to get a nap without lying 
down." He takes the vacant seat. 

The Porter: "All right, sah." He goes to the 
end of the car, and returns with a ]3illow. 

Mr. Roberts : " Ah — porter ! " 

The Porter: "Yes, sah." 

Mr. Roberts : " Of course you didn't notice ; but 
you don't think you did notice who was in that 
berth yonder ? " 

He indicates a certain berth. 



72 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

The Porter : " Dat's a gen'leman in dat berth, I 
think, sah." 

Mr. Roberts, astutely : " There's a bonnet hang- 
ing from the hook at the top. I'm not sure, but 
it looks like my wife's bonnet." 

The Porter, evidently shaken by this reasoning, 
but recovering his firmness : " Yes, sah. But you 
can't depend upon de ladies to hang deir bonnets 
on de right hook. Jes' likely as not dat lady's 
took de hook at de foot of her berth instead o' 
de head. Sometimes dey takes both." 

Mr. Roberts : " Ah ! " After a pause. " Porter ! " 

The Porter: "Yes, sah." 

J/r. Roberts : '^ You wouldn't feel justified in 
looking ? " 

The Porter: "I couldn't, sah; I couldn't, in- 
deed." 

3fr. Roberts, reaching his left hand towards The 
Porter'^s, and pressing a half-dollar into his in- 
stantly responsive palm : " But there's nothing to 
prevent my looking if I feel perfectly sure of the 
bonnet ? " 

The Porter : " N-no, sah." 

Mr. Roberts : " All right." 

The Porter retires to the end of the car, and 



AND OTHER FARCES. 73 

resumes the work of polisliing the passengers' 
boots. After an interval of quiet, Mr. Roberts 
rises, and, looking about him with what he feels to 
be melodramatic stealth, approaches the suspected 
berth. He unloops the curtain with a trembling 
hand, and peers ineffectually in ; he advances his 
head farther and farther into the darkened recess, 
and then suddenly dodges back again, with The 
Californian hanging to his neckcloth with one 
hand. 

The Californian, savagely: "What do you 
want ? " 

Mr. Roberts, struggling and breathless : "I — 
I — I want my wife." 

The Californian : " Want your wife ! Have / 
got your wife ? " 

Mr. Roberts : " No — ah — that is — ah, excuse 
me — I thought you were my wife.'^ 

The Californian, getting out of the berth, but at 
the same time keeping hold of Mr. Roberts: 
" Thought I was your wife ! Do I look like your 
wife? You can't play that on me, old man. 
Porter ! conductor ! " 

Mr. Roberts, agonized: "Oh, I beseech you, 
my dear sir, don't — don't ! I can explain it — 



74 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

I can indeed. I know it has an ugly look ; but 
if you will allow me two words — only two 
words " — 

Mrs. Roberts, suddenly parting the curtain of 
her berth, and springing out into the aisle, with 
her hair wildly dishevelled : '' Edward ! " 

Mr. Uoberts : " Oh, Agnes, explain to this 
gentleman ! " Imploringly : " Don't you know 



iie 



9" 



^- A Voice: "Make him show you the strawberry 
mark on his left arm." 

Mrs. Roberts : " Edward ! Edward ! " The Cali- 
fornian mechanically loses his grip, and they fly 
into each other's embrace. " Where did you come 
fiom?" 

A Voice : " Centre door, left hand, one back." 

The Conductor, returning with his lantern : 
''Hallo! What's the matter here?" 

A Voice: "Train robbers! Throw up your 
hands ! Tell the express-messenger to bring his 
safe." The passengers emerge from their berths 
in various deshabille and bewilderment. 

The Co7iductor to Mr. Roberts : " Have you 
been making all this row, waking up my passen- 
gers ? " 



AND OTHER FARCES. 75 

The Californian : " No, sir, he hasn't. Pve 
been making this row. This gentleman was peace- 
ably looking for his wife, and I misunderstood 
him. You want to say anything to me ? " 

The Conductor, silently taking The Californian' s 
measure with his eye, as he stands six feet in his 
stockings : " If I did I'd get the biggest brakeman 
I could find to do it for me. Fve got nothing to 
say except that I think you'd better all go back to 
bed again." He goes out, and the passengers dis- 
appear one by one, leaving the Bobertses and The 
Californian alone. 

The Californian, to Mr. Roberts : " Stranger, I'm 
sorry I got you into this scrape." 

Mr. Roberts: "Oh, don't speak of it, my dear 
sir. I'm sure we owe you all sorts of apologies, 
which I shall be most happy to offer you at 
my house in Boston, with every needful explana- 
tion." He takes out his card, and gives it to 
The Californian, who looks at it, and then looks 
at Mr. Roberts curiously. "There's my address, 
and I'm sure we shall both be glad to have you 
call." 

Mrs. Roberts : "Oh, yes, indeed." The Califor- 
nian parts the curtains of his berth to re-enter 



76 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

it. ^^ Good-night, sir, and I assure you we shall 
do nothing more to disturb you — shall we, 
Edward ? '^ 

Mr. Roberts : " No. And now, dear, I think 
you'd better go back to your berth." 

Mrs. Roberts : " I couldn't sleep, and I shall not 
go back. Is this your place ? I will just rest my 
head on your shoulder ; and we must both be per- 
fectly quiet. You've no idea what a nuisance I 
have been making of myself. The whole car was 
perfectly furious at me one time, I kept talking so 
loud. I don't know how I came to do it, but I 
suppose it was thinking about you and Willis 
meeting without knowing each other made me 
nervous, and I couldn't be still. I woke everybody 
up with my talking, and some of them were quite 
outrageous in their remarks; but I didn't blame 
them the least bit, for I should have been just as 
bad. That California gentleman was perfectly 
splendid, though. I can tell you he made them 
stop. We struck up quite a friendship. I told 
him I had a brother coming on from California, 
and he's going to try to think whether he knows 
Willis." Groans and inarticulate protests make 
themselves heard from different berths. "I de- 



AND OTHER FARCES. 77 

clare, I've got to talking again ! There, now, I 
shall stop, and they won't hear another squeak 
from me the rest of the night." She lifts her head 
from her husband's shoulder. " I wonder if baby 
will roll out. He does kick so ! And I just sprang 
up and left him when I heard your voice, without 
putting anything to keep him in. I must go and 
have a look at him, or I never can settle down. 
No, no, don't you go, Edward; you'll be prying 
into all the wrong berths in the car, you poor 
thing ! You staj^ here, and I'll be back in half a 
second. I wonder which is my berth. Ah ! that's 
it ; I know the one now." She makes a sudden 
dash at a berth, and pulling open the curtains is 
confronted by the bearded visage of The Callfor- 
nian. "Ah! Ow ! ow ! Edward! Ah! I — I 
beg your pardon, sir ; excuse me ; I didn't know it 
was you. I came for my baby." 

The Californian, solemnly : " I haven't got any 
baby, ma'am." 

3frs. Eoherts : " No — no — I thought you were 
my baby." 

The Californian : " Perhaps I am, ma'am ; I've 
lost so much sleep I could cry, anyway. Do I 
look like your baby ? " 



78 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

Mrs. Roberts : " No, no, you don't.'' In distress 
that overcomes her mortification. '' Oh, where is 
my baby ? I left him all uncovered, and he'll 
take his death of cold, even if he doesn't roll 
out. Oh, Edward, Edward, help me to find 
baby ! " 

Mr. Roberts, bustling aimlessly about : " Yes, 
yes ; certainly, my dear. But don't be alarmed ; 
we shall find him." 

The Califomiian, getting out in his stocking 
feet : " We shall find him, ma'am, if we have to 
search every berth in this car. Don't you take on. 
That baby's going to be found if he's aboard the 
train, now, you bet ! " He looks about and then 
tears open the curtains of a berth at random. 
" That your baby, ma'am ? " 

Mrs. Roberts, flying upon the infant thus ex- 
posed. " Oh, baby, baby, baby ! I thought I had 
lost you. Um ! um ! um ! " She clasps him in 
her arms, and covers his face and neck with 
kisses. 

The Califoimian, as he gets back into his berth, 
sotto voce : " I wish I had been her baby." 

Mrs. Roberts, returning with her husband 
to his seat, and bringing the baby with her: 



AND OTHER FARCES. 79 

<' There ! Did you ever see such a sleeper, 
Edward ? " In her ecstasy she abandons all 
control of her voice, and joyfully exclaims : " He 
Jias slept all through this excitement, without a 
wink." 

A solemn Voice from one of the berths : " I 

t ^envy him." A laugh follows, in which all the 

passengers join. 

Mrs. Roberts, in a hoarse whisper, breaking a 
little with laughter : " Oh, my goodness ! there I 
went again. But how funny ! I assure you, 
Edward, that if their remarks had not been about 
me, I could have really quite enjoyed some of 
them. I wish there had been somebody here to 
take them down. And I hope I shall see some of 
the speakers in the morning before — Edward, 
I've got an idea ! " 

Mr. Roberts, endeavoring to teach his wife by 
example to lower her voice, which has risen again : 
" What — what is it, my dear ? " 

Mrs. Roberts : " Why, don't you see ? How per- 
fectly ridiculous it was of me not to think of it 
before ! though I did think of it once, and hadn't 
the courage to insist upon it. But of course it is ; 
and it accounts for his being so polite and kind to 



80 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

me through all, and it's the only thing that can. 
Yes, yes, it must be." 

Mr. Boherts, mystified : " What ? " 

Mrs. Roberts: "Willis." 

Mr. Roberts : " Who ? " 

Mrs. Roberts : " This Californian." 

Mr. Roberts: "Oh!" 

Mrs. Roberts : " No stranger could have been so 
patient, and — and — attentive ; and I know that 
he recognized me from the first, and he's just kept 
it up for a joke, so as to surprise us, and have a 
good laugh at us when we get to Boston. Of course 
it's Willis." 

Mr. Roberts, doubtfully : " Do you think so, my 
dear ? " 

Mrs. Roberts: "I know it. Didn't you notice 
how he looked at your card ? And I want you to 
go at once and speak to him, and turn the tables 
on him." 

Mr. Roberts : "I — I'd rather not, mj dear." 

Mrs. Roberts: "Why, Edward, what can you 
mean ? " 

Mr. Roberts : " He's very violent. Suppose it 
shouldn't be Willis ? " 

Mrs. Roberts : " Nonsense ! It is Willis. Come, 



AND OTHER FAKCES. 81 

let's both go and just tax him with it. He can't 
deny it, after all he's done for me." She pulls her 
reluctant husband toward The Calif ornian^ s berth, 
and they each draw a curtain. " Willis ! " 

The Californiarij with plaintive endurance : 
"Well, ma'am?" 

Mrs. Roberts, triumphantly : " There ! I knew 
it was you all along. How could you play such a 
joke on me ? " 

The Calif ornian : '^ I didn't know there'd been 
any joke; but I suppose there must have been, 
if you say so. Who am I now, ma'am — you 
husband, or your baby, or your husband's wife, 
or"-^ 

Mrs. Roberts : " How funny you are ! You hnow 
you're Willis Campbell, my only brother. Now 
donH try to keep it up any longer. Willis." 

Voices, from various berths : ^*'**tjive u§ a rest, 
Willis ! "(2y Joke's too thin, Willis ! ' ff You're 
played out, Willis ! " \\ Own up, old fellow — own 
up!" 

The Californian, issuing from his berth, and 
walking up and down the aisle, as before, till quiet 
is restored: "I haven't got any sister, and my 
Tiame ain't Willis, and it ain't Campbell. I'm 



82 THE SLEEPmG-CAR 

very sorry, because I'd like to oblige you any way 
I could/' 

Mrs. Roberts, in deep mortification : " It's I who 
ought to apologize, and I do most humbly. I 
don't know what to say ; but when I got to think- 
ing about it, and how kind you had been to me, 
and how sweet you had been under all my — inter- 
ruptions, I felt perfectly sure that you couldn't be 
a mere stranger, and then the idea struck me that 
you must be my brother in disguise ; and I was 
so certain of it that I couldn't help just letting 
you know that we'd found you out, and " — 

Mr. Roberts, offering a belated and feeble moral 
support : " Yes." 

Mrs. Roberts, promptly turning upon him : "And 
you ought to have kept me from making such a 
simpleton of myself, Edward." 

The Calif ornian, soothingly: "Well, ma'am, 
that ain't always so easy. A man may mean well, 
and yet not be able to carry out his intentions. 
But it's all right. And I reckon we'd better try to 
quiet down again, and get what rest we can." 

Mrs. Roberts : " Why, yes, certainly ; and I will 
try — oh, I will try not to disturb you again. 
And if there's anything we can do in reparation 



AND OTHER FARCES. 83 

after we reach. Boston, we shall be so glad to do 
it!" 

They bow themselves away, and return to their 
seat, while The Calif ornian re-enters his berth. 



84 THE SLEEPING-CAK 



III. 



The train stops at Framingham, and The Porter 
comes in with a passenger, whom he shows to 
the seat opposite Mr. and Mrs. Roberts. 

The Porter : " You can sit here, sah. We'll be 
in, in about half an hour now. Hang up your bag 
for you, sah ? " 

The Passenger: "No, leave it on the seat here." 

The Porter goes out, and the Rohertses maintain 
a dejected silence. The bottom of the bag, thrown 
carelessly on the seat, is toward the Robertses, who 
regard it listlessly. 

Jfrs. Roberts, suddenly clutching her husband's 
arm, and hissing in his ear : " See ! " She points 
to the white lettering on the bag, where the name 
"Willis Campbell, San Francisco," is distinctly 
legible. " But it can't be ; it must be some other 
Campbell. I can't risk it." 

Mr. Roberts : " But there's the name. It would 



AND OTHER FARCES. 85 

be very strange if there were two people from 
San Francisco of exactly the same name. / will 
speak." 

Mrs. Roberts, as wildly as one can in whisp6r : 
" No, no, I can't let you. We've made ourselves 
the laughing-stock of the whole car already with 
our mistakes, and I can't go on. I would rather 
perish than ask him. You don't suppose it could 
be ? No, it couldn't. There may be twenty 
Willis Campbells in San Francisco, and there 
probably are. Do you think he looks like me ? 
He has a straight nose; but you can't tell any- 
thing about the lower part of his face, the beard 
covers it so ; and I can't make out the color 
of his eyes by this light. But of course, it's all 
nonsense. Still, if it should be ! It would be 
very stupid of us to ride all the way from Fram- 
ingham to Boston with that name staring one in 
the eyes. I wish he would turn it away. If it 
really turned out to be AVillis, he would think we 
were awfully stiff and cold. But I can't help it ; 
I canH go attacking every stranger I see, and 
accusing him of being my brother. No, no, I 
can't, and I wonH, and that's all about it." She 
leans forward, and addresses the stranger with 



86 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

sudden sweetness. " Excuse me, sir, but I am 
very much interested by the name on your bag. 
Not that I think you are even acquainted with 
him, and there are probably a great many of them 
there; but your coming from the same city, and 
all, does seem a little queer, and I hope you won't 
think me intrusive in speaking to you, because if 
you should happen, by the thousandth of a chance, 
to be the right one, I should be so happy ! " 

Campbell : " The right what, madam ? " 

Mrs. Boherts : " The right Willis Campbell." 

Campbell: "I hope I'm not the wrong one; 
tho'.gh after a week's pull on the railroad it's 
pretty hard for a man to tell which Willis Camp- 
bell he is. May I ask if your Willis Campbell 
had friends in Boston ? " 

Mrs. Roberts, eagerly: "He had a sister and a 
brother-in-law and a nephew." 

Campbell : " Name of Eoberts ? " 

Mrs. Roberts : " Every one." 

Caynpbell : " Then you're " — 

Mrs. Roberts, ecstatically : " Agnes." 

Campbell: " And he's" — 

Mrs. Roberts : " Mr. Roberts ! " 

Campbell : " And the baby's " — 



AND OTHER FARCES. 87 

Mrs. Roberts : " Asleep ! '^ 

Campbell : " Then I am the right one." 

Mrs. Roberts: "Oh, Willis! Willis! Willis! 
To think of our meeting in this way ! " She 
kisses and embraces him, while Mr. Roberts shakes 
one of his hands which he finds disengaged. 
" How in the world did it happen ? '^ 

Campbell: "Oh, I found myself a little ahead 
of time, and I stopped off with an old friend of 
mine at Framingham ; I didn't want to disappoint 
you when you came to meet this train, or get you 
up last night at midnight." 

Mrs. Roberts: "And I was in Albany, and J've 
been moving heaven and earth to get home be- 
fore you arrived ; and Edward came aboard at 
Worcester to surprise me, and — Oh, you've never 
seen the baby ! I'll run right and get him this 
instant, just as he is, and bring him. Edward, 
you be explaining to Willis — Oh, my good- 
ness ! " looking wildly about. " I don't remember 
the berth, and I shall be sure to wake up that poor 
California gentleman again. What shall I do ? " 

Campbell : " What California gentleman ? " 

Mrs. Roberts : " Oh, somebody we've been stir- 
ring up the whole blessed night. First I took 



88 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

him for baby, and then Edward took him for me, 
and then 1 took him for baby again, and then we 
both took him for you." 

Camphell : " Did he look like any of us ? " 

Mrs. Roberts : " Like us ? He's eight feet tall, 
if he's an inch, in his stockings — and he's always 
in them — and he has a long black beard and 
mustaches, and he's very lanky, and stoops over a 
good deal ; but he's just as lovely as he can be, 
and live, and he's been as kind and patient as 
twenty Jobs." 

Campbell : " Speaks in a sort of soft, slow 
grind ? " 

Mrs. Roberts : " Yes." 

Campbell : " Gentle and deferential to ladies ? " 

Mrs. Roberts: "As pie." 

Campbell: "It's Tom Goodall. I'll have him 
out of there in half a second. I want you to take 
him home with you, Agnes. He's the best fellow 
in the world. Which is his berth ? " 

Mrs. Roberts : " Don't ask m*e, Willis. But if 
you'd go for baby, you'll be sure to find him.''^ 

Mr. Roberts, timidly indicating a berth: "I 
think that's the one.'-' 

Campbell, plunging at it, and pulling the cur« 
tains open : " You, old Tom Goodall I " 



AND OTHER FAECES. 89 

The Californian, appearing : " I ain't any Tom 
Goodall. My name's Abram Sawyer." 

Camphelly falling back : " Well, sir, you're 
right. I'm awfully sorry to disturb you; but, 
from my sister's description here, I felt certain 
you must be my old friend Tom Goodall." 

The Californian : " I ain't surprised at it. I'm 
only surprised I ainH Tom Goodall. I've been a 
baby twice, and I've been a man's wife once, and 
once I've been a long-lost brother." 

Campbell, laughing: "Oh, they've found him. 
Vm the long-lost brother." 

The Californian^ sleepily : " Has she found the 
other one ? " 

Campbell : " Yes ; all right, I believe." 

The Californian : " Has he found what he 
wanted ? " 

Campbell: "Yes; we're all together here." 
The Californian makes a movement to get into 
bed again. "Oh, don't! You'd better make a 
night of it now. It's almost morning anyway. 
We want you to go home with us, and Mrs. 
Roberts will give you a bed at her house, and let 
you sleep a week." 

The Californian : " Well, I reckon you're right, 



90 THE SLEEPING-CAE 

stranger. I seem to be in the hands of Providence 
to-night, anyhow." He pulls on his boots and 
coat, and takes his seat beside Camphell. "I 
reckon there ain't any use in fighting against 
Providence." 

Mrs. Roberts, briskly, as if she had often tried 
it and failed: "Oh, not the least in the world. 
Pm sure it was all intended; and if you had 
turned out to be Willis at last, I should be certain 
of it. What surprises me is that you shouldn't 
turn out to be anybody, after all." 

The Calif ornian: "Yes, it is kind of curious. 
But I couldn't help it. I did my best." 

Mrs. Roberts : " Oh, don't speak of it. We are 
the ones who ought to apologize. But if you only 
had been somebody, it would have been such a 
good joke ! We could always have had such 
a laugh over it, don't you see ? " 

The Calif ornian: "Yes, ma'am, it would have 
been funny. But I hope you've enjoyed it as it 
is." 

Mrs. Roberts : " Oh, very much, thanks to you. 
Only I can't seem to get reconciled to your not 
being anybody, after all. You must at least be 
some one we've heard about, don't you think ? 



AND OTHER FARCES. 91 

It's SO strange that you and Willis never even 
met. Don't you think you have some acquaint- 
ances in common ? '' 

Campbell: "Look here, Agnes, do you always 
shout at the top of your voice in this way when 
you converse in a sleeping-car ? " 

Mrs. Roberts : " Was I talking loud again ? 
Well, you can't help it, if you want to make peo- 
ple hear you." 

Campbell: "But there must be a lot of them 
who don't want to hear you. I wonder that the 
passengers who are not blood-relations don't 
throw things at you — boots and hand-bags and 
language." 

Mrs. Roberts: "Why, that's what they've been 
doing — language at least — and I'm only sur- 
prised they're not doing it now." 

The Californiaiij rising : " They'd better not, 
ma'am." He patrols the car from end to end, 
and quells some rising murmurs, halting at the 
rebellious berths as he passes. 

Mrs. Roberts, enraptured by his championship : 
" Oh, he must be some connection." She glances 
through the window. "I do believe that was 
Newton, or Newtonville, or West Newton, or 



92 THE SLEEPING-CAB 

Newton Centre. I must run and wake up 
baby, and get him dressed. I sha'n't want to 
wait an instant after we get in. Why, we're 
slowing up ! Why, I do believe we're there ! 
Edward, we're tjiere ! Only fancy being there 
already ! " 

Mr. Roberts : ^^ Yes, my dear. Only we're not 
quite there yet. Hadn't we better call your Aunt 
Mary ? " 

Mrs. Roberts : ^' I'd forgotten her." 
Campbell : ^^ Is Aunt Mary with you ? " 
Mrs. Roberts : ^^To be sure she is. Didn't I tell 
you ? She came on expressly to meet you." 

Campbell, starting up impetuously : " Which 
berth is she in ? " 

Mrs. Roberts : " Eight over baby." 
Campbell : " And which berth is baby in ? " 
Mrs. Roberts, distractedly : " Why, that's just 
what I can't tell. It was bad enough when they 
were all filled up ; but now, since the people have 
begun to come out of them, and some of them are 
made into seats, I canH tell." 

The Calif ornian : " I'll look for you, ma'am. I 
should like to wake up all the wrong passengers 
on this car. I'd take a pleasure in it. If you 



AND OTHER FARCES. 93 

could make sure of any berth that ainH the one, 
I'd begin on that.'^ 

Mrs. Roberts : " I can't even be sure of the 
wrong one. No, no ; you mustn't " — The Call' 
fornian moves away, and pauses in front of one 
of the berths, looking back inquiringly at Mrs. 
Roberts. " Oh, don't ask me ! I can't tell." To 
Campbell : " Isn't he amusing ? So like all those 
Calif ornians that one reads of — so chivalrous and 
so humorous ! " 

Aunt Mary, thrusting her head from the curtains 
of the berth before which The Californian is 
standing : " Go along with you ! What do you 
want ? " 

The Californian : " Aunt Mary.'' 

Aunt Mary : " Go away. Aunt Mary, indeed ! " 

Mrs. Roberts, turning toward her, followed by 
Campbell and Mr. Roberts : " Why, Aunt Mary, 
it is you ! And here's Willis, and here's Edward." 

Aunt Mary : " Nonsense ! How did they get 
aboard ? " 

Mrs. Roberts : " Edward came on at Worcester, 
and Willis at Framingham, to surprise me." 

Aunt Mary : " And a very silly performance. 
Let them wait till I'm dressed, and then I'll talk 



94 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

to them. Send for the porter." She withdraws 
her head behind the curtain, and then thrusts it 
out again. " And who, pray, may this be ? " She 
indicates The Calif ornian. 

Mrs. Roberts : " Oh, a friend of ours from Cali- 
fornia, who's been so kind to us all night, and 
who's going home with us." 

Aunt Mary : " Another ridiculous surprise, I 
suppose. But he shall not surprise me. Young 
man, isn't your name Sawyer ? " 

The Calif ornian : " Yes, ma'am." 

Aunt Marij : " Abram ? " 

The Californian: "Abram Sawyer. You're 
right there, ma'am." 

Mrs. Roberts : " Oh ! oh ! I knew it ! I knew 
that he must be somebody belonging to us. Oh, 
thank you, aunty, for thinking " — 

Aunt Mary : " Don't be absurd, Agnes. Then 
you're my " — 

A Voice from one of the berths : " Long-lost 
stepson. Found ! found at last ! " 

The Californian looks vainly round in an 
endeavor to identify the speaker, and then turns 
again to Aunt Mary. 

Aunt Mary: "Weren't your parents from 
Bath?" 



AND OTHER FAECES. 95 

The Calif ornian, eagerly : " Both of 'em, ma'am 
■ — both of 'em." 
(^jf%e Voice : " my prophetic soul, my uncle ! " 

Aunt Mary : " Then you're my old friend Kate 
Harris's daughter ? " 

The Calif ornian : " I might be her son, ma'am ; 
but my mother's name was Susan Wakeman." 

Aunt Mary, in sharp disgust : " Call the porter, 
please." She withdraws her head and pulls her 
curtains together ; the rest look blankly at one 
another. 

Campbell : " Another failure, and just when we 
thought we were sure of you. I don't know what 
we shall do about you, Mr. Sawyer." 
J^ The Voice : " Adopt him." 

Campbell : " That's a good idea. We will adopt 
you. You shall be our adoptive " — 
... The Voice : " Baby boy." 
^-^ Another Voice: "Wife." 

A Third Voice: "Brother." 
J_A Fourth Voice : " Early friend." 
1, A Fifth Voice : " Kate Harris's daughter." 

Campbell, laying his hand on The Californian^s 
shoulder, and breaking into a laugh ; " Don't mind 
them. They don't mean anything. It^s just their 



96 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

4 A 

way. You come liomm^itli^nysister, and sp^nd 

Christmas, and let us devote^l|^yst "of our lives 
to making yqur declining years happ^^/^jWL 
'^p Voices ^,^'Ooodi for you, "VViIIis!" ^^^^^aU 
come ! " ^*" No ceremony ! " ^ Small and^^Hfl 

Campbell, looking round : " We appear to ha^ 
fallen in with a party of dry-goods drummers. It 
makes a gentleman feel like an intruder." The 
train stops ; he looks out of the window. " We've 
arrived. Come, Agnes ; come, Eoberts ; come, Mr. 
Sawyer — let's be going." They gather up their 
several wraps and bags, and move with great dig- 
nity toward the door. 

Aunt Mary^ putting out her head : ^^ Agnes ! If 
you must forget your aunt, at least remember your 
child." 

Mrs. Roberts, running back in an agony of 
remorse : " Oh, baby, did I forget you ? " 

Campbell : " Oh, aunty, did she forget you ? " 
He runs back, and extends his arms to his aunt. 
" Let me help you down. Aunt Mary." 

Aunt Mary : "Nonsense, Willis. Send the porter." 

Campbell, turning round and confronting The 
Porter: "He was here upon instinct. Shall he 
fetch a step-ladder ? " 



AND OTHEE FAECES. 97 

Aunt Mary: "He will know what to do. Go 
away, Willis; go f(P.y with that child, Agnes. 
If I should happen to fall on you " — They 
retre^^the curtain drops and her voice is heard 
hej/^KTit addressing The Porter : " Give me your 
hand ; now your back ; now your knee. So ! And 
very well done, thanks." 



/ / 



THE REGISTER. 

FARCE, 



V.C'- 



THE EEGISTEK. 



I. 

Scene : In an upper chamber of a boarding-house 
in Melanchthon Place, Boston, a mature, plain 
young lady, with every appearance of establish- 
ing herself in the room for the first time, moves 
about, bestowing little touches of decoration 
here and there, and talking with another young 
lady, whose voice comes through the open door- 
way of an inner room. 

Miss Ethel Reed, from within: "What in the 
world are you doing, Nettie ? " 

Miss Henrietta Spaidding : "Oh, sticking up a 
household god or two. What are you doing ? " 
. Miss Reed : " Despairing." 

Miss Spaulding : " Still ? " 

3Iiss Beed, tragically: ^^ Still! How soon did 
you expect me to stop ? I am here on the sofa, 
where I flung myself two hours ago, and I don't 
101 



102 THE SLEEPING-CAU 

think I shall ever get up. There is no reason why 
I ever should." 

Miss Spaulding, suggestively : " Dinner/' 

Miss Reed: "Oh, dinner! Dinner, to a broken 
heart ! " 

Miss Spaulding : " I don't believe your heart is 
broken." 

Miss Reed : " But I tell you it is ! I ought to 
know when my own heart is broken, I should 
hope. What makes you think it isn't ? " 

Miss Spaulding : " Oh, it's happened so often ! " 

Miss Reed : " But this is a real case. You ought 
to feel my forehead. It's as hot ! " 

Miss Spaulding: "You ought to get up and 
help me put this room to rights, and then you 
would feel better," 

Miss Reed : " No ; I should feel worse. The idea 
of household gods makes me sick. Sylvan deities 
are what / want ; the great god Pan among the 
cat-tails and arrow-heads in the ' ma'sh ' at Ponk- 
wasset; the dryads of the birch woods — there are 
no oaks ; the nymphs that haunt the heights and 
hollows of the dear old mountain ; the " — 

Miss Spaulding: "Wha-a-at? I can't hear a 
word you say." 



AND OTHER FARCES. 10^ 

Miss Beed : ^- That's because you keep fussing 
about so. Why don't you be quiet, if you want 
to hear?" She lifts her voice to its highest 
pitch, with a pause for distinctness between the 
words: " I'm heart-broken for — Ponkwasset. The 
dryads — of the — birch woods. The nymphs — 
and the great — god — Pan — in the reeds — by 
the river. And all — that — sort of — thing ! " 

Miss Sjpaulding : " You know very well you're 
not." 

Miss Reed: "Pm not? What's the reason Pm 
not? Then, what am I heart-broken for?" 

Miss Spaulding : "You're not heart-broken at 
all. You know very well that he'll call before 
we've been here twenty-four hours." 
Miss Reed : '' Who ? " 
Miss Spaulding : "The great god Pan." 
Miss Reed: "Oh, how cruel you are, to mock 
me so ! Come in here, and sympathize a little ! 
Do, Nettie." 

Miss Spaulding : "No; you come out here and 
utilize a little. I'm acting for your best good, as 
they say at Ponkwasset." 

Miss Reed: "When they want to be disagree* 
able!" 



104 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

Miss Spaulding : '^ If this room isn't in order by 
the time he calls, you'll be everlastingly disgraced." 

Miss Beed: "I'm that now. I can't be more 
so — there's that comfort. What makes you think 
he'll call ? " 

Miss Spaulding : "Because he's a gentleman, 
and will want to apologize. He behaved very 
rudely to you." 

Miss Reed : " No, Nettie ; / behaved rudely to 
hi7n. Yes ! Besides, if he behaved rudely, he 
was no gentleman. It's a contradiction in terms, 
don't you see ? But I'll tell you what I'm going 
to do if he comes. I'm going to show a proper 
spirit for once in my life. I'm going to refuse to 
see him. You^ve got to see him." 

Miss Spaulding : " Nonsense ! " 

Miss Reed : " Why nonsense ? Oh, why ? Ex- 
pound ! " 

3fiss Spaulding: "Because he wasn't rude to 
me, and he doesn't want to see me. Because I'm 
plain, and you're pretty." 

Miss Reed : " I'm 7iot ! You know it perfectly 
well. I'm hideous." 

Miss Spaulding : " Because I'm poor, and you're 
a person of independent property." 



AND OTHER FARCES. 105 

Miss Beed : " Dependent property, I should call 
it : just enough to be useless on ! But that's 
insulting to him. How can you say it's because 
I have a little money ? " 

Miss Spaulding : " Well, then, I won't. I take 
it back. I'll say it's because you're young, and 
I'm old." 

Miss Reed : " You're not old. You're as young 
as anybody, Nettie Spaulding. And you know I'm 
not young ; I'm twenty-seven, if I'm a day. I'm 
just dropping into the grave. But I can't argue 
with you, miles off so, any longer." Miss Reed 
appears at the open door, dragging languidly after 
her the shawl which she had evidently drawn 
round her on the sofa j her fair hair is a little dis- 
ordered, and she presses it into shape with one 
hand as she comes forward; a lovely flush vies 
with a heavenly pallor in her cheeks ; she looks 
a little pensive in the arching eyebrows, and a 
little humorous about the dimpled mouth. " Now 
I can prove that you are entirely wrong. Where 
were you ? — This room is rather an improvement 
over the one we had last winter. There is more 
of a view " — she goes to the window — " of the 
houses across the Place ; and I always think the 



106 THE SLEEPESTG-CAR 

swell front gives a pretty shape to a room. I'm 
sorry they've stopped building them. Your piano 
goes very nicely into that little alcove. Yes, 
we're quite palatial. And, on the whole, I'm 
glad there's no fireplace. It's a pleasure at times ; 
but for the most part it's a vanity and a vexation, 
getting dust and ashes over everything. Yes ; 
after all, give me the good old-fashioned, clean, 
convenient register ! Ugh ! My feet are like ice." 
She pulls an easy-chair up to the register in the 
corner of the room, and pushes open its valves 
with the toe of her slipper. As she settles her- 
self luxuriously in the chair, and poises her feet 
daintily over the register: "Ah, this is some- 
thing like ! Henrietta Spaulding, ma'am ! Did I 
ever tell you that you were the best friend I have 
in the world ? " 

Miss Sj^aulding, who continues her work of 
arranging the room : " Often." 

Miss Reed : " Did you ever believe it ? " 

Miss Spaulding : " Never." 

Miss Reed: "Why?" 

Miss Spaulding, thoughtfully regarding a vase 
which she holds in her hand, after several times 
shifting it from a bracket to the corner of her 



AND OTHER FARCES. 107 

piano and back : " I wish I could tell where you 
do look best ! " 

Miss Reedj leaning forward wistfully, with her 
hands clasped and resting on her knees : " I wish 
you would tell me why you don't believe you're 
the best friend I have in the world." 

Miss Spaulding, finally placing the vase on the 
bracket : " Because you've said so too often." 

Miss Beed : " Oh, that's no reason ! I can 
prove to you that you are. Who else but you 
would have taken in a homeless and friendless 
creature like me, and let her stay bothering round 
in demoralizing idleness, while you were seri- 
ously teaching the young idea how to drub the 
piano ? " 

Miss Spaidding : " Anybody who wanted a 
room-mate as much as I did, and could have found 
one willing to pay more than her share of the 
lodging." 

Miss Reed, thoughtfully: "Do you think so, 
Henrietta ? " 

Miss Spaulding : " I know so." 

Miss Reed: "And you're not afraid that you 
wrong yourself ? " 

Miss Spaulding : " Not the least." 



108 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

Miss Reed : " Well, be it so — as they say in 
novels. I will not contradict you; I will not 
say you are my best friend ; I will merely say 
that you are my only friend. Come here, Henri- 
etta. Draw up your chair, and put your little 
hand in mine." 

Miss Spaulding, with severe distrust : " What 
do you want, Ethel Eeed ? " 

Miss Reed : " I want — I want — to talk it over 
with you." 

Miss Spaidding, recoiling : " I knew it ! Well, 
now, we've talked it over enough ; we've talked 
it over till there's nothing left of it." 

Miss Reed : " Oh, there's everything left ! It 
remains in all its original enormity. Perhaps we 
shall get some new light upon it." She extends 
a pleading hand towards Miss Sjmulding. '^ Come, 
Henrietta, my only friend, shake ! — as the ' good 
Indians ' say. Let your Ethel pour her hackneyed 
sorrows into your bosom. Such an uncomfortable 
image, it always seems, doesn't it, pouring sorrows 
into bosoms ! Come ! " 

Miss Spaulding, decidedly : " No, I won't ! And 
you needn't try wheedling any longer. I won't 
sympathize with you on that basis at all." 



AND OTHER FARCES. 109 

Miss Reed: "What shall I try, then, if you 
won't let me try wheedling ? " 

Miss Spaulding, going to the piano and opening 
it : " Try courage ; try self-respect." 

Miss Reed : " Oh, dear ! when I haven't a morsel 
of either. Are you going to practise, you cruel 
maid ? " 

Miss Spaulding : " Of course I am. It's half- 
past four, and if I don't do it now I sha'n't be 
prepared to-morrow for Miss Eobins: she takes 
this piece." 

Miss Reed: "Well, well, perhaps it's all for 
the best. If music be the food of — umph-ump ! 
— you know what ! — play on." They both laugh, 
and Miss Spaulding pushes back a little from the 
piano, and wheels toward her friend, letting one 
hand rest slightly on the keys. 

Miss Spaulding : " Ethel Keed, you're the most 
ridiculous girl in the world." 

Miss Reed : " Correct ! " 

Miss Spaulding : " And I don't believe you ever 
were in love, or ever will be." 

Miss Reed : " Ah, there you wrong me, Henri- 
etta ! I have been, and I shall be — lots of 
times." 



110 THE SLEEPING-CAB 

Miss Spaulding : "Well, what do you want to 
say now ? You must hurry, for I can't lose any 
more time." 

Miss Reed : " I will free my mind with neatness 
and despatch. I simply wish to go over the whole 
affair, from Alfred to Omaha ; and you've got to 
let me talk as much slang and nonsense as I 
want. And then I'll skip all the details I can. 
Will you ? " 

Miss Sioaulding, with impatient patience : " Oh, 
I suppose so ! " 

Miss Reed : " That's very sweet of you, though 
you don't look it. Now, where was I ? Oh, yes ; 
do you think it was forth-putting at all, to ask 
him if he would give me the lessons ? " 

Miss S;paulding : " It depends upon why you 
asked him." 

Miss Reed : " I asked him from — from — Let 
me see; I asked him because — from — Yes, I 
say it boldly; I asked him from an enthusiasm 
for art, and a sincere wish to learn the use of 
oil, as he called it. Yes ! " 

Miss Spaulding : " Are you sure ? " 

Miss Reed : " Sure ? Well, we will say that I 
am, for the sake of argument. And, having 



AND OTHER FARCES. Ill 

secured this basis, the question is whether I 
wasn't bound to offer him pay at the end, and 
whether he wasn't wrong to take my doing so in 
dudgeon." 

Miss Spaidding : "Yes, I think he was wrong. 
And the terms of his refusal were very ungentle- 
manly. He ought to apologize most amply and 
humbly." At a certain expression in Miss Reed's 
face, she adds, with severity : " Unless you're 
keeping back the main point. You usually do. 
Are you ? " 

Miss Reed : " No, no. I've told you everything 
— everything ! " 

Miss Spaulding : " Then I say, as I said from 
the beginning, that he behaved very badly. It 
was very awkward and very painful, but you've 
really nothing to blame yourself for." 

Miss Reed, ruefully : " ISTo-o-o ! " 

Miss Spaulding : " What do you mean by that 
sort of ^No'?" 

Miss Reed: "Nothing." 

Miss Spaidding, sternly : " Yes, you do, Ethel." 

Miss Reed : " I don't, really. What makes you 
think I do?" 

Miss Spaidding : " It sounded very dishonest." 



112 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

Miss Reed: "Did it ? I didn't mean it to." 
Her friend breaks down with a laugh, while Hiss 
Reed preserves a demure countenance. 

Miss Spaulding: "What are you keeping 
back?" 

Miss Reed: "Nothing at all — less than noth- 
ing ! I never thought it was worth mentioning." 

Miss Spaulding : " Are you telling me the 
truth ? " 

Miss Reed : " I'm telling you the truth and 
something more. You can't ask better than that, 
can you ? '^ 

Miss Spauldingy turning to her music again: 
"Certainly not." 

Miss Reed : in a pathetic wail : " Henrietta ! 
do you abandon me thus ? Well, I will tell you, 
heartless girl ! I've only kept it back till now 
because it was so extremely mortifying to my 
pride as an artist — as a student of oil. Will 
you hear me ? " 

Miss Spaulding, beginning to play : " No." 

Miss Reed, with burlesque wildness : " You 
shall ! " Miss Spaulding involuntarily desists. 
" There was a moment — a fatal moment — when 
he said he thought he ought to tell me that if 



AND OTHER FAUCES. 113 

I found oil amusing I could go on ; but that he 
didn't believe I should ever learn to use it, and 
he couldn't let me take lessons from him with 
the expectation that I should. There ! " 

Miss Spaulding, with awful reproach : " And 
you call that less than nothing ? I've almost a 
mind never to speak to you again, Ethel. How 
could you deceive me so ? " 

Miss Reed : " Was it really deceiving ? 1 
shouldn't call it so. And I needed your sympathy 
so much, and I knew I shouldn't get it unless you 
thought I was altogether in the right." 

Miss Spaulding : " You are altogether in the 
wrong ! And it's you that ought to apologize to 
him — on your bended knees. How could you 
offer him money after that? I wonder at you, 
Ethel!" 

Miss Reed: *^Why — don't you see, Nettie? — 
I did keep on taking the lessons of him. I did 
find oil amusing — or the oilist — and I kept on. 
Of course I had to, off there in a farmhouse full 
of lady boarders, and he the only gentleman short 
of Crawford's. Strike, but hear me, Henrietta 
Spaulding ! What was I to do about the half- 
dozen lessons I had taken before he told me I 



114 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

should never learn to use oil ? Was I to offer 
to pay him for these, and not for the rest ; or 
was I to treat the whole series as gratuitous ? 
I used to lie awake thinking about it. I've got 
some little tact, but I couldn't find any way out 
of the trouble. It was a box — yes, a box of 
the deepest dye ! And the whole affair having 
got to be — something else, don't you know ? — 
made it all the worse. And if he'd only — only — 
But he didn't. JTot a syllable, not a breath! 
And there I was. I had to offer him the money. 
Audit's almost killed me — the way he took my 
offering it, and now the way you take it! And 
it's all of a piece." Miss Reed suddenly snatches 
her handkerchief from her pocket, and buries her 
face in it. — " Oh, dear — oh, dear ! Oh ! — hu, hu, 
hu!" 

Miss Spaulding, relenting : " It was awkward." 

Miss Reed : " Awkward ! You seem to think 
that because I carry things off lightly I have no 
feeling." 

Miss Spaulding : " You know I don't think that, 
Ethel." 

Miss Reed, pursuing her advantage : " I don't 
know it from you, Nettie. I've tried and tried to 



AND OTHER FARCES. 115 

pass it off as a joke, and to treat it as something 
funny ; but I can tell you it's no joke at all." 
Miss Spaulding, sympathetically : ^'I see, dear." 
Miss Reed : " It's not that I care for him " — 
Miss Spaulding : "Why, of course." 
Miss Beed: "For I don't in the least. He is 
horrid every way : blunt, and rude, and horrid. 
I never cared for him. But I care for myself ! 
He has put me in the position of having done an 
unkind thing — an unladylike thing — when I was 
only doing what I had to do. Why need he have 
taken it the way he did ? Why couldn't he have 
said politely that he couldn't accept the money 
because he hadn't earned it? Even that would 
have been mortifying enough. But he must go 
and be so violent, and rush off, and — Oh, I never 
could have treated anybody so ! " 

Miss Spaulding: "Not unless you were very 
fond of them." 

Miss Reed: "What?" 

Miss Spaulding: "Not unless you were very 
fond of them." 

Miss Reed, putting away her handkerchief: 
" Oh, nonsense, Nettie ! He never cared anything 
for me, or he couldn't have acted so. But no 



116 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

matter for that. He has fixed everything so that 
it can never be got straight — never in the world. 
It will just have to remain a hideous mass of — 
of — / don't know what ; and I have simply got to 
go on withering with despair at the point where 
I left off. But I don't care ! That's one comfort." 

Miss Spaulding : " I don't believe he'll let you 
wither long, Ethel." 

Miss Beed : " He's let me wither for twenty- 
four hours already ! But it's nothing to me, now, 
hoiv long he lets me wither. I'm perfectly satis- 
fied to have the affair remain as it is. I am in the 
right, and if he comes I shall refuse to see him." 

Miss Spaulding : " Oh, no, you won't, Ethel ! " 

Miss Beed : " Yes, I shall. I shall receive him 
very coldly. I won't listen to any excuse from 
him." 

Miss Spaulding : " Oh, yes, you will, Ethel ! " 

Miss Beed : " No, I shall not. If he wishes me 
to listen he must begin by humbling himself in 
the dust — yes, the dust, Nettie ! I won't take 
anything short of it. I insist that he shall realize 
that I have suffered." 

Miss Spaulding: *' Perhaps he has suffered 
too!" 



AKD OTHER FARCES. 117 

Miss Reed : " Oh, he suffered ! " 

Miss Spaulding : "You know that he was per- 
fectly devoted to you." 

• Miss Reed : " He never said so." 

Miss Spaulding : " Perhaps he didn't dare.' 

Miss Reed: "He dared to be very insolent to 
me." 

Miss Spaulding : " And you know you liked him 
very much." 

Miss Reed: "I won't let you say that, Kettie 
Spaulding. I didn't like him. I respected and 
admired him; but I didn't like him. He will 
never come near me; but if he does he has to 
begin by — by — Let me see, what shall I make 
him begin by doing ? " She casts up her eyes 
for inspiration while she leans forward over the 
register. " Yes, I will ! He has got to begin by 
taking that money ! " 

Miss Spaulding : " Ethel, you wouldn't put that 
affront upon a sensitive and high-spirited man ! " 

Miss Reed : " Wouldn't I ? You wait and see. 
Miss Spaulding ! He shall take the money, and 
he shall sign a receipt for it. I'll draw up the 
receipt now, so as to have it ready, and I shall 
ask him to sign it the very moment he enters this 



118 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

door — t'he very instant!" She takes a portfolio 
from the table near her, without rising, and writes : 
" ^ Eeceived from Miss Ethel Eeed one hundred 
and twenty-five dollars, in full, for twenty-five 
lessons in oil-painting.' There — when Mr. Oliver 
Eansom has signed this little document he may 
begin to talk ; not before ! " She leans back in 
her chair with an air of pitiless determination. 

Miss Spaulding : " But, Ethel, you don't mean 
to make him take money for the lessons he 
gave you after he told you you couldn't learn 
anything ? " 

Miss Reed, after a moment's pause : " Yes, I do. 
This is to punish him. I don't wish for justice 
now; I wish for vengeance! At first I would 
have compromised on the six lessons, or on none 
at all, if he had behaved nicely ; but after what's 
happened I shall insist upon paying him for every 
lesson, so as to make him feel that the whole thing, 
from first to last, was a purely business transac- 
tion on my part. Yes, a purely — business — 

TRANSACTION ! " 

Miss Sjpaulding, turning to her music: "Then 
I've got nothing more to say to you, Ethel 
Eeed." 



AND OTHER FARCES. 119 

• Miss Reed : '' I don't say but what, after he's 
taken the money and signed the receipt, I'll listen 
to anything else he's got to say, very willingly." 
Miss Spaulding makes no answer, but begins to 
play with a scientific absorption, feeling her way 
fitfully through the new piece, while Miss Reed, 
seated by the register, trifles with the book she 
has taken from the table. 



120 THE SLEEPING-CAR 



IL 



The interior of the room of Miss Spaulding and 
Miss Reed remains in view, while the scene 
discloses, on the other side of the partition wall 
in the same house, the bachelor apartment of 
Mr, Samuel Grinnidge. Mr, Grinnidge in his 
dressing-gown and slippers, with his pipe in 
his mouth, has the effect of having just come 
in ; his friend Mr, Oliver Ransom stands at the 
window, staring out into the November weather. 

Grinnidge : " How long have you been waiting 
here ? " 

Ransom: "Ten minutes — ten years. How 
should I know ? " 

Grinnidge: "Well, I don't know who else 
should. Get back to-day?" 

Ransom : " Last night." 

Grinnidge : " Well, take off your coat, and pull 
up to the register, and warm your poor feet." He 
puts his hand out over the register. "Confound 



AND OTHER FARCES. 121 

it ! somebody's got the register open in the next 
room ! You see, one pipe comes up from the 
furnace and branches into a V just under the floor, 
and professes to heat both rooms. But it don't 
There was a fellow in there last winter who used 
to get all my heat. Used to go out and leave his 
register open, and I'd come in here just before 
dinner and find this place as cold as a barn. We 
had a running fight of it all winter. The man 
who got his register open first in the morning got 
all the heat for the day, for it never turned the 
other way when it started in one direction. Used 
to almost suffocate — warm, muggy days — main- 
taining my rights. Some piano-pounder in there 
this winter, it seems. Hear ? And she hasn't 
lost any time in learning the trick of the register. 
What kept you so late in the country ? " 

Ransom, after an absent-minded pause : " Grin- 
nidge, I wish you would give me some advice." 

Grinnidge : " You can have all you want of it 
at the market price." 

Ransom : " I don't mean your legal advice." 

Grinnidge: "I'm sorry. What have you been 
doing ? " 

Ransom : " I'vQ been making an ass of myself." 



122 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

Grinnidge : " Wasn't that rather superfluous ? '* 

Ra7isom : " If you please, yes. But now, if 
you're capable of listening to me without any 
further display of your cross-examination wit, I 
should like to tell you how it happened." 

Grinnidge : " I will do my best to veil my 
brilliancy. Go on." 

Ransom : " I went up to Ponkwasset early in 
September for the foliage." 

Grinnidge: "And staid till late in October. 
There must have been a reason for that. What 
was her name ? Foliage ? " 

Ransom, coming up to the corner of the chimney- 
piece, near which his friend sits, and talking to 
him directly ovei the register : " I think you'll 
have to get along without the name for the pres- 
ent. I'll tell you by and by." As Mr. Ransom 
pronounces these words. Miss Reed, on her side 
of the partition, lifts her head with a startled 
air, and, after a moment of vague circumspection, 
listens keenly. " But she was beautiful. She was 
a blonde, and she had the loveliest eyes — eyes, 
you know, that could be funny or tender, just as 
she chose — the kind of eyes I always liked." 
Miss Reed leads forward over the register. " She 



AND OTHER FARCES. 123 

had one of those faces that always leave you in 
doubt whether they^re laughing at you, and so 
keep you in wholesome subjection; but you feel 
certain that they're good, and that if they did 
hurt you by laughing at you, they'd look sorry 
for you afterward. When she walked you saw 
what an exquisite creature she ,-as. It always 
made me mad to think I couldn't paint her walk.'' 

Grinnidge : " I suppose you saw a good deal of 
her walk." 

Ransom : " Yes ; we were off in the woods and 
fields half the time together." He takes a turn 
towards the window. 

Miss Reed, suddenly shutting the register on her 
side: "Oh!" 

Miss Spaulding, looking up from her music : 
"What is it, Ethel?" 

Miss Reed : " Nothing, nothing ; I — I — thought 
it was getting too warm. Go on, dear ; don't let 
me interrupt you." After a moment of heroic 
self-denial she softly presses the register open 
with her foot. 

Ransom, coming back to the register: "It all 
began in that way. I had the good fortune one 
day to rescue her from a — cow." 



124 THE SLEEPLNG-CAR 

Miss Beed : " Oh, for shame ! " 

Miss Spaulding, desisting from her piano: 
" What is the matter ? " 

Miss Reed, clapping the register to: "This 
ridiculous book ! But don't — don't mind me, 
Nettie." Breathlessly : "Go — go — on ! " Miss 
Spaulding resumes, and again Miss Reed softly 
presses the register open. 

Ransom, after a pause : " The cow was grazing, 
and had no more thought of hooking Miss " — 

Miss Reed : " Oh, I didn't suppose he would! — 
Go on, Nettie, go on ! The hero — such a goose ! " 

Ransom : " I drove her away with my camp- 
stool, and Miss — the young lady — was as grateful 
as if I had rescued her from a menagerie of wild 
animals. I walked home with her to the farm- 
house, and the trouble began at once.'' Pantomime 
of indignant protest and burlesque menace on the 
part of Miss Reed. "There wasn't another well 
woman in the house, except her friend Miss Spaul- 
ding, who was rather old and rather plain." He 
takes another turn to the window. 

Miss Reed : " Oh ! " She shuts the register, but 
instantly opens it again. " Louder, Nettie." 

Miss Spaulding, in astonishment : " What ? '' 



AND OTHER FARCES. 125 

Miss Reed : " Did I speak ? I didn't know it. 
I'' — 

Miss Spaulding, desisting from practice : " What 
is that strange, hollow, rumbling, mumbling kind 
of noise ? " 

Miss Reed, softly closing the register with her 
foot : " I don't hear any strange, hollow, rumbling, 
mumbling kind of noise. Do you hear it now ? " 

Miss Spaulding: "No. It was the Brighton 
whistle, probably." 

Miss Reed : " Oh, very likely." As Miss Spaul- 
ding turns again to her practice Miss Reed re-opens 
the register and listens again. A little interval of 
silence ensues, while Ransom lights a cigarette. 

Grin7iidge : " So you sought opportunities of 
rescuing her from other cows ? " 

Ransom, returning : " That wasn't necessary. 
The young lady was so impressed by my behavior, 
that she asked if I would give her some lessons in 
the use of oil." 

Grinnidge : " She thought if she knew how to 
paint pictures like yours she wouldn't need any one 
to drive the cows away." 

Ransom: "Don't be farcical, Grinnidge. That 
sort of thing will do with some victim on the 



126 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

witness-stand who can't help himself. Of course 
I said I would, and we were off half the time 
together, painting the loveliest and loneliest bits 
around Ponkwasset. It all went on very well, till 
one day I felt bound in conscience to tell her that I 
didn't think she would ever learn to paint, and that 
if she was serious about it she'd better drop it at 
once, for she was wasting her time." 

Grinnidge, getting up to fill his pipe : ^^ That 
was a pleasant thing to do." 

Ransom : " I told her that if it amused her, to 
keep on ; I would be only too glad to give her all 
the hints I could, but that I oughtn't to encourage 
her. She seemed a good deal hurt. I fancied at 
the time that she thought I was tired of having 
her with me so much." 

Miss Reed : " Oh, did you, indeed ! " To Miss 
Sjoaulding, who bends an astonished glance upon 
her from the piano : " The man in this book is the 
most conceited creature, Nettie. Play chords — 
something very subdued — ah!" 

Miss Spaulding : " What are you talking about, 
Ethel?" 

Ransom : " That was at night ; but the next day 
she came up smiling, and said that if I didn't mind 



AND OTHER FARCES. 127 

she would keep on — for amusement ; she wasn't a 
bit discouraged." • 

Miss Reed : " Oh ! — Go on, Nettie ; don't let 
my outbursts interrupt you." 

Ransom : '^ I used to fancy sometimes that she 
was a little sweet on me." 

Miss Reed : " You wretch ! — Oh, scales, Nettie ! 
Play scales ! " 

Miss Spaulding : " Ethel Keed, are you crazy ? " 

Ransom, after a thoughtful moment : " Well, so 
it went on for the next seven or eight weeks. 
When we weren't sketching in the meadows, or on 
the mountain-side, or in the old punt on the pond, 
we were walking up and down the farmhouse 
piazza together. She used to read to me when 
I was at work. She had a heavenly voice, 
Grinnidge." 

Miss Reed : " Oh, you silly, silly thing ! — Keally 
this book makes me sick, Nettie." 

Ransom : " Well, the long and the short of it 
was, I was hit — hard, and I lost all courage. You 
know how I am, Grinnidge." 

Miss Reed, softly : " Oh, poor fellow ! " 

Ransom : " So I let the time go by, and at the 
end I hadn't said anything." 



128 THE SLEEPING-CAU 

Miss Reed :" " No, sir ! You hadnH ! " Miss 
Spaulding gradually ceases to play, and fixes her 
attention wholly upon Miss Reed, who bends for- 
ward over the register with an intensely excited 
face. 

Ransom : " Then something happened that made 
me glad, for twenty-four hours at least, that I 
hadn't spoken. She sent me the money for twenty- 
five lessons. Imagine how I felt, Grinnidge ! 
What could I suppose but that she had been 
quietly biding her time, and storing up her resent- 
ment for my having told her she couldn't learn to 
paint, till she could pay me back with interest m 
one supreme insult ? " 

Miss Reed, in a low voice : " Oh, how could you 
think such a cruel, vulgar thing ? " Miss Spaul- 
ding leaves the piano, and softly approaches her, 
where she "Has--sunk on her knees beside the 
register. 

Ransom : " It was tantamount to telling me that 
she had been amusing herself with me instead of 
my lessons. It remanded our whole association, 
which I had got to thinking so romantic, to the 
relation of teacher and pupil. It was a snub — a 
heartless, killing snub ; and I couldn't see it in any 



AND OTHER FARCES. 129 

Other light." Bansom walks away to the window, 
and looks out. 

Miss Reed, flinging herself backward from the 
register, and hiding her face in her hands : " Oh, 
it wasn't ! it wasn't ! it wasn't ! How could you 
think so ? " 

Miss Spaulding, rushing forward, and catching 
her friend in her arms : " What is the matter with 
you, Ethel Eeed ? What are you doing here, over 
the register ? Are you trying to suffocate your- 
self ? Have you taken leave of your senses ? " 

Grinnidge : " Our fair friend on the other side 
of the wall seems to be on the rampage." 

Miss Spaut^ifig, shutting the register with a 
violent clash : " Ugh ! how hot it is here ! " 

Grinnidge: "Doesn't like your conversation, 
apparently." 

Miss Beed, frantically pressing forward to open 
the register: "Oh, don't shut it, Nettie, dear! 
If you do I shall die ! Do-o-n't shut the regis- 
ter ! " 

Miss Spaulding: "Don't shut it? Why, we've 
got all the heat of the furnace in the room now. 
Surely you don't want any more ? " 

Miss Beed: "No, no; not any more. But — 



130 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

but — Oh, dear ! what shall I do ? " She still 
struggles in the embrace of her friend. 

Grinnidge, remaining quietly at the register, 
while Bansom walks away to the window : " Well, 
what did you do ? " 

3fiss Reed: "There, there! They're commen- 
cing again! Do open it, Nettie. I ivill have it 
open ! " She wrenches herself free, and dashes 
the register open. 

Grinnidge : " Ah, she's opened it again." 

Miss Reed, in a stage-whisper: "That's the 
other one ! " 

Ransom, from the window : " Do ? I'll tell you 
what I did." 

Miss Reed: "That's 01 — Mr. Eansom. And, 
oh, I can't make out what he's saying ! He must 
have gone away to the other side of the room — 
and it's at the most important point ! " 

Miss Spaulding, in an awful undertone : " Was 
that the hollow rumbling I heard ? And have you 
been listening at the register to what they've been 
saying? Ethel!'' 

Miss Reed : " I haven't been listening, exactly." 

Miss Spaulding : " You have ! You have beeu 
eavesdropping ! " 



AND OTHER FARCES. 131 

Miss Beed: "Eavesdropping is listening through 
a key-hole, or around a corner. This is very 
different. Besides, it's Oliver, and he's been talk- 
ing about me. Hark ! " She clutches her friend's 
hand, where they have crouched upon the floor to- 
gether, and pulls her forward to the register. " Oh, 
dear, how hot it is ! I wish they would cut off the 
heat down below." 

Grinnidge, smoking peacefully through the 
silence which his friend has absent-mindedly let 
follow upon his last words : " Well, you seem dis- 
posed to take your time about it." 

Hansom : " About what ? Oh, yes ! Well " — 

Miss Beed: "'Sh! Listen." 

Miss Spaulding : " I won't listen ! It's shame- 
ful : it's wicked ! I don't see how you can do it, 
Ethel ! " She remains, however, kneeling near the 
register, and she involuntarily inclines a little more 
toward it. 

Bansom : " — It isn't a thing that I care to shout 
from the house-tops." He returns from the window 
to the chimney-piece. " I wrote the rudest kind of 
note, and sent back her letter and her money in it. 
She had said that she hoped our acquaintance was 
not to end with the summer, but that we might 



132 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

sometimes meet in Boston ; and I answered that 
our acqiuaintance had ended already, and that I 
should be sorry to meet her anywhere again." 

Grinnidge : " Well, if you wanted' to make an 
ass of yourself, you did it pretty completely." 

Miss Reed, whispering : " How witty he is ! 
Those men are always so humorous with each 
other." 

Ransom : "Yes ; I didn't do it by halves." 

Miss Reed, whispering : " Oh, thafs funny, 
too ! " 

Grinnidge: "It didn't occur to you that she 
might feel bound to pay you for the first half- 
dozen, and was embarrassed how to offer to pay for 
them alone ? " 

Miss Reed : " How he does go to the heart of the 
matter ! " She presses Miss Spauldlng^s hand in an 
ecstasy of approval. 

Ransom : " Yes, it did — afterward." 

Miss Reed, in a tender murmur : " Oh, poor 
Oliver ! " 

Ransom : " And it occurred to me that she was 
perfectly right in the whole affair." 

Miss Reed : " Oh, how generous ! how noble ! " 

Ransom : " I had had a thousand opportunities, 



AND OTHER FAECES. 133 

and I hadn't been man enongh to tell her that I 
was in love with her." 

Miss Reed : " How can he say it right out so 
bluntly ? But if it's true " — 

Ransom : " I couldiiH speak. I was afraid of 
putting an end to the affair — of frightening her — 
disgusting her." 

Miss Reed: '^ Oh, how little they know us, 
Nettie ! " 

Ransom: "She seemed so much above me in 
every way — so sensitive, so refined, so gentle, so 
good, so angelic ! " 

Miss Reed : " There ! Noiv do you call it eaves- 
dropping ? If listeners never hear any good of 
themselves, what do you say to that ? It proves 
that I haven't been listening." 

Miss Spauldlng: " 'Sh ! They're saying some- 
thing else." 

Ransom : " But all that's neither here nor there. 
I can see now that under the circumstances she 
couldn't as a lady have acted otherwise than she 
did. She was forced to treat our whole acquaint- 
ance as a business matter, and I had forced her to 
do it." 

Miss Reed : " You had, you poor thing ! " 



134 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

Grinnidge : " Well, what do you intend to do 
about it ? " 

Hansom: "Well" — 

31iss Reed : " 'Sh ! " 

Miss Spauldlng : " 'Sh ! " 

Rmisom : " — that's what I want to submit to 
you, Grinnidge. I must see her." 

Grinnidge : " Yes. I'm glad / mustn't." • 

Miss Reed, stifling a laugh on 3Iiss Spaulding's 
shoulder : " They're actually afraid of us, Nettie ! " 

Ransom : " See her, and go down in the dust.'^ 

Miss Reed : " My very words ! " 

Ransom : " I have been trying to think what was 
the very humblest pie I could eat, by way of pen- 
ance ; and it appears to me that I had better begin 
by saying that I have come to ask her for the 
money I refused." 

Miss Reed, enraptured : " Oh ! doesn't it seem 
just like — like — inspiration, Nettie ? " 

Miss Spaulding : " 'Sh ! Be quiet, do ! You'll 
frighten them away ! " 

Grin7iidge : " And then what ? '^ 

Ransom : " What then ? I don't know what 
then. But it appears to me that, as a gentleman, 
I've got nothing to do with the result. All that 



AND OTHER FAECES. 135 

I've got to do is to submit to my fate, whatever 
it is." 

Miss Beed, breathlessly : " What princely cour- 
age ! What delicate magnanimity ! Oh, he 
needn't have the least fear ! If I could only tell 
him that ! " 

Grinnidge, after an interval of meditative 
smoking ; " Yes, I guess that's the best thing you 
can do. It will strike her fancy, if she's an im- 
aginative girl, and she'll think you a fine fellow." 
Miss Reed : " Oh, the horrid thing ! " 
Grinnidge : " If you humble yourself to a 
woman at all, do it thoroughly. If you go half- 
way down she'll be tempted to push you the rest 
of the way. If you flatten out at her feet to begin 
with, ten to one but she will pick you up." 
Hansom : " Yes, that was my idea." 
Miss Heed : " Oh, was it, indeed ! Well ! " 
Hansom : " But I've nothing to do with her pick- 
ing me up or pushing me down. All that I've got 
to do is to go and surrender myself." 

Grinnidge : " Yes. Well ; I guess you can't go 
too soon. I like your company ; but I advise you 
as a friend not to lose time. Where does she 
live?" 



136 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

Ransom : " That's the remarkable part of it : 
she lives in this house." 

Miss Reed and Miss Spaulding, in subdued 
chorus: ^^Oh!" 

Griimidffe, taking his pipe out of his mouth in 
astonishment : " No ! " 

Ransom : " I just came in here to give my good 
resolutions a rest while I was screwing my courage 
up to ask for her." 

Miss Reed : " Don't you think he's verT/ humor- 
ous ? Give his good, resolutions a rest I That's 
the way he always talks." 

Miss Spaulding : '• 'Sh ! " 

Grinnidge: "You said you came for my ad- 
vice." 

Ransom : " So I did. But I didn't promise to 
act upon it. AVell ! " He goes toward the door. 

Grinnidge^ without troubling himself to rise : 
" Well, good luck to you ! " 

Miss Reed : " How droll they are with each 
other ! Don't you like to hear them talk ? Oh, I 
could listen all day." 

Grinnidge, calling after Ransom : " You haven't 
told me your duck's name." 

Miss Reed : " Is that what they call us ? Duck I 



AND OTHER FARCES. 137 

Do you think it's very respectful, Nettie ? I don't 
believe I like it. Or, yes, why not ? It's no harm 

— if 1 am his duck ! " 

Ransom, coming back: "Well, I don't propose 
to go shouting it round. Her name is Miss Eeed 

— Ethel Eeed." 

Miss Beed : " How can he ? " 

Grinnidge : " Slender, willowy party, with a lot 
of blond hair that looks as if it might be in- 
digenous ? Rather pensive-looking ? '^ 

Miss Reed : " Indigenous ! I should hope so ! " 

Ransom: "Yes. But she isn't pensive. She's 
awfully deep. It makes me shudder to think how 
deep that girl is. And when I think of my cour- 
age in daring to be in love with her — a stupid, 
straightforward idiot like me — I begin to respect 
myself in spite of being such an ass. Well, I'm 
off. If I stay any longer I shall never go." He 
closes the door after him, and Miss Reed instantly 
springs to her feet. 

Miss Reed : " Now he'll have to go down to the 
parlor and send up his name, and that just gives 
me time to do the necessary prinking. You stay 
here and receive him, Nettie." 

Miss Spaulding : "Never! After what's hap* 



138 THE SLEEPIKG-CAR 

pened I can never look him in the face again. Oh, 
how low, and mean, and guilty I feel ! " 

Miss Reed, with surprise : " Why, how droll ! 
Now I don't feel the least so." 

Miss Spaulding : " Oh, it's very different with 
you. YouWe in love with him." 

Miss Reed : " For shame, Nettie ! I'm not in 
love with him." 

Miss Spaulding : " And you can explain and 
justify it. But I never can justify it to myself, 
much less to him. Let me go, Ethel ! I shall tell 
Mrs. McKnight that we must change this room 
instantly. And just after I'd got it so nearly in 
order ! Go down and receive him in the parlor, 
Ethel. I canH see him." 

Miss Reed : " Eeceive him in the parlor ! Why, 
Nettie, dear, you're crazy ! I'm going to accept 
him : and how can I accept him — with all the 
consequences — in a public parlor ? No, indeed ! 
If you won't meet him here for a moment, just to 
oblige me, you can go into the other room. Or, no 
— you'd be listening to every word through the 
key-hole, you're so demoralized ! " 

Miss Spaulding : " Yes, yes, I deserve your con- 
tempt, Ethel." 



AND OTHER FARCES. 139 

Miss Reed, laughing : " You will have to go out 
for a walk, you poor thing ; and I'm not going to 
have you coming back in five or ten minutes. You 
have got to stay out a good hour." 

Miss Spaulding, running to get her things from 
the next room : " Oh, I'll stay out till midnight ! '' 

Miss Reed, responding to a tap at the door : 
^^ Ye-e-s ! Come in ! — You're caught, Nettie." 

A maid-servant, appearing with a card : " This 
gentleman is asking for you in the parlor. Miss 
Eeed." 

Miss Reed : " Oh ! Ask him to come up here, 
please. — Nettie ! Nettie ! " She calls to her friend 
in the next room. " He's coming right up, and if 
you don't run you're trapped." 

Miss Spaulding, re-appearing, cloaked and bon- 
neted : " I don't blame you, Ethel, comparatively 
speaking. You can say that everything is fair in 
love. He will like it, and laugh at it in you, 
because he'll like everything you've done. Besides, 
you've no principles, and I liaveP 

Miss Reed : " Oh, I've lots of principles, Nettie, 
but I've no practice ! " 

Miss Sjjaulding : " No matter. There's no ex- 
cuse for me. I listened simply because I was a 



140 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

woman, and couldn't help it; and, oh, what will 
he think of me ? " 

Miss Reed : " I won't give you away ; if you 
really feel so badly" — 

3Iiss Spaulding : " Oh, do you think you can 
keep from telling him, Ethel dear ? Try ! And I 
will be your slave forever ! " Steps are heard on 
the stairs outside. " Oh, there he comes ! " She 
dashes out of the door, and closes it after her, a 
2Qoment before the maid-servant, followed by Mr. 
Hansom, taps at it. 



AND OTHER FARCES. 141 



III. 



Scene : Miss Reed opens the door, and receives 
Mr. Ransom with well-affected surprise and 
state, suffering him to stand awkwardly on the 
threshold for a moment. 

She, coldly : " Oh ! — Mr. Eansom ! " 

He, abruptly : '^ I've come " — 

She: "Won't you come in ? " 

He, advancing a few paces into the room : " I've 
come " — 

She, indicating a chair : " Will you sit down ? " 

He : " I must stand for the present. I've come 
to ask you for that money, Miss Reed, which I 
refused yesterday, in terms that I blush to think 
of. I was altogether and wholly in the wrong, 
and I'm ready to offer any imaginable apology or 
reparation. I'm ready to take the money and 
to sign a receipt, and then to be dismissed with 
whatever ignominy you please. I deserve any- 
thing — everything ! " 



142 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

She : ^^ The money ? Excuse me ; I don't know 

— I'm afraid that I'm not prepared to pay you 
the whole sum to-day." 

He, hastily : " Oh, no matter ! no matter ! I 
don't care for the money now. I merely wish to 

— to assure you that I thought you were perfectly 
right in offering it, and to — to " — 

She : " What ? " 

He: "Nothing. That is — ah — ah " — 

She: " It's extremely embarrassing to have peo- 
ple refuse their money when it's offered them, and 
then come the next day for it, when perhaps it 
isn't so convenient to pay it — very embarrassing." 

He, hotly : " But I tell you I don't want the 
money! I never wanted it, and wouldn't take it 
on any account." 

She: "Oh! I thought you said you came to 
get it ? " 

He : " I said — I didn't say — I meant — that is 

— ah — I " — He stops, open-mouthed. 

She, quietly : " I could give you part of the 

money now." 

He : " Oh, whatever you like ; it's indifferent " — 
She : " Please sit down while I write a receipt." 

She places herself deliberately at the table, and 



AND OTHER FARCES. 143 

opens her portfolio. "I will pay you now, Mr. 
Eansom, for the first six lessons you gave me — 
the ones before you told me that I could never 
learn to do anything." 

He, sinking mechanically into the chair she indi- 
cates : ^' Oh, just as you like ! " He looks up at the 
ceiling in hopeless bewilderment, while she writes. 

She, blotting the paper : " There ! And now let 
me offer you a little piece of advice, Mr. Ransom, 
which may be useful to you in taking pupils 
hereafter." 

He, bursting out : " I never take pupils ! " 

She : " Never take pupils ! I don't understand. 
You took me." 

He, confusedly : " I took you — yes. You 
seemed to wish — you seemed — the case was 
peculiar — peculiar circumstances." 

She, with severity : " May I ask why the cir- 
cumstances were peculiar ? I saw nothing peculiar 
about the circumstances. It seemed to me it was 
a very simple matter. I told you that I had 
always had a great curiosity to see whether I 
could use oil paints, and I asked you a very plain 
question, whether you would let me study with 
you. Didn't T ? " 



144 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

He: "Yes." 

She : " Was there anything wrong — anything 
queer about my asking you ? " 

He : Ko, no ! Not at all — not in the least." 

She : " Didn't you wish me to take the lessons 
of you ? If you didn't, it wasn't kind of you to 
let me." ^ 

He : " Oh, I was perfectly willing — very glad 
indeed, very much so — certainly ! " 

She : " If it wasn't your custom to take pupils, 
you ought to have told me, and I wouldn't have 
forced myself upon you." 

He, desperately : " It wasn't forcing yourself 
upon me. The Lord knows how humbly grateful 
I was. It was like a hope of heaven ! " 

She : " Eeally, Mr. Ransom, this is very strange 
talk. What am I to understand by it ? Why 
should you be grateful to teach me ? Why should 
giving me lessons be like a hope of heaven ? " 

He: "Oh, I will tell you ! " 

She: "Well?" 

He, after a moment of agony : " Because to be 
with you " — 

She: "Yes?" 

He: "Because I wished to be with you. Be- 



AND OTHER FAUCES. 145 

cause — those days in the woods, when you read, 
and!" — 

She : " Painted on my pictures " — 

He: "Were the happiest of my life. Because 
— I loved you!" 

She: "Mr. Eansom ! '' 

He : " Yes, I must tell you so. I loved you ; I 
love you still. I shall always love you, no matter 
what" — 

She : " You forget yourself, Mr. Eansom. Has 
there been anything in my manner — conduct — to 
justify you in using such language to me ? " 

He: "No — no" — 

She : " Did you suppose that because I first took 
lessons of you from — from — an enthusiasm for 
art, and then continued them for — for — amuse- 
ment, that I wished you to make love to me ? " 

He : " No, I never supposed such a thing. I'm 
incapable of it. I beseech you to believe that no 
one could have more respect — reverence " — He 
twirls his hat between his hands, and casts an im- 
ploring glance at her. 

She : " Oh, respect — reverence ! I know what 
they mean in the mouths of men. If you re- 
spected, if you reverenced me, could you dare to 



146 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

tell me, after my unguarded trust of you during 
the past months, that you had been all the time 
secretly in love with me ? " 

He, plucking up a little courage : " I don't see 
that the three things are incomj^atible." 

She: "Oh, then you acknowledge that you did 
presume upon something you thought you saw in 
me to tell me that you loved me, and that you 
were in love with me all the time ? " 

He, contritely : " I have no right to suppose that 
you encouraged me ; and yet — I can't deny it now 
— I was in love with you all the time." 

She: "And you never said a word to let me 
believe that you had any such feeling toward 
me!" 

He: "I — I" — 

She : " You would have parted from me without 
a syllable to suggest it — perhaps parted from me 
forever ? " After a pause of silent humiliation 
for him : " Do you call that brave or generous ? 
Do you call it manly — supposing, as you hoped, 
that / had any such feeling ? " 

He : "No ; it was cowardly, it was mean, it was 
unmanly. I see it now, but I will spend my life 
in repairing the wrong, if you will only let me." 



AND OTHER FARCES. 147 

He impetuously advances some paces toward her, 
and then stops, arrested by her irresponsive 
attitude. 

She, with a light sigh, and lodliing down at the 
paper, which she has continued to hold between 
her hands : " There was a time — a moment — 
when I might have answered as you wish." 

He : " Oh ! then there will be again. If you 
have changed once, you may change once more. 
Let me hope that some time — any time, dearest " — 

She, quenching him with a look : " Mr. Ransom, 
I shall never change toward you! You confess 
that you had your opportunity, and that you de- 
spised it." 

He : " Oh ! not despised it ! " 

She : " Neglected it." 

He : " Not wilfully — no. I confess that I was 
stupidly, vilely, pusillan — pusillan — illani " — 

She: "'Mously" — 

He : " Thanks — 'mously unworthy of it ; but I 
didn't despise it ; I didn't neglect it ; and if you 
will only let me show by a lifetime of devotion 
how dearly and truly I have loved you from the 
first moment I drove that cow away " — 

She: "Mr. Ransom, I have told you that I 



148 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

should never change toward you. That cow was 
nothing when weighed in the balance against your 
being willing to leave a poor girl, whom you sup- 
posed interested in you, and to whom you had paid 
the most marked attention, without a word to show 
her that you cared for her. What is a cow, or a 
whole herd of cows, as compared with obliging a 
young lady to offer you money that you hadn't 
earned, and then savagely flinging it back in her 
face ? A yoke of oxen would be nothing — or a 
mad bull." 

He : " Oh, I acknowledge it ! I confess it." 

She : " And you own that I am right in refusing 
to listen to you now ? " 

Me, desolately : " Yes, yes." 

She : " It seems that you gave me lessons in 
order to be with me, and if possible to interest me 
in you ; and then you were going away without a 
word." 

He, with a groan : " It was only because I was 
afraid to speak." 

She : " Oh, is that any excuse ? " 

He : " No ; none." 

She : " A man ought always to have courage." 
After a pause, in which he stands before her with 



AND OTHER FARCES. 



149 



bowed head : " Then there's nothing for me but to 
give you this money." 

He, with sudden energy : '' This is too much ! 
I" — 

She, offering him the bank-notes: "No; it is 
the exact sum. I counted it very carefully." 

He : " I won't take it ; I can't ! I'll never 
take it ! " 

She, standing with the money in her outstretched 
hand : " I have your word as a gentleman that you 
will take it." 

He, gasping: "Oh, well — I will take it — I 
will "_ He clutches the money, and rushes toward 
the door. " Good-evening ; ah — good-by " — 

She, calling after him : " The receipt, Mr. Ean- 
som ! Please sign this receipt ! " She waves the 
paper in the air. 

He : " Oh, yes, certainly ! Where is it — what 
.— which"— Ife rushes back to her, and seizing 
the receipt, feels blindly about for the pen and ink. 
" Where shall I sign ? " 
She: "Eead it first." 
He : " Oh, it's all — ail right " — 
She: "I insist upon your reading it. It's a busi 
ness transaction Eead it aloud." 



150 THE SLEEPrNG-CAR 

He, desperately : " Well, well ! '^ He reads. 
" * Received from Miss Ethel E.eed, in full, for 
twenty-five lessons in oil-painting, one hundred 
and twenty-five dollars, and her hand, heart, and 
dearest love forever.' " He looks up at her. 
'' Ethel ! " 

She, smiling : " Sign it, sign it ! " 

He, catching her in his arms and kissing her : 
" Oh, yes — he7^e ! " 

She, pulling a little away from him, and laugh- 
ing : "Oh, oh! I only wanted one signature! 
Twenty autographs are too many, unless you'll let 
me trade them off, as the collectors do." 

He : " No ; keep them all ! I couldn't think of 
letting any one else have them. One more ! " 

She : " ISTo ; it's quite enough ! " She frees 
herself, and retires beyond the table. "This 
unexpected affection " — 

He : " Is it unexpected — seriously ? " 

She : " What do you mean ? " 

He : " Oh, nothing ! " 

She : " Yes, tell me ! " 

He : " I hoped — I thought — perhaps — that 
you might have been prepared for some such 
demonstration on my part.'' 



AND OTHER FARCES. 151 

She: "And why did you think — hope — per- 
haps — that, Mr. Eansom, may I ask ? " 

He : " If I hadn't, how should I have dared to 
speak ? " 

She : " Dared ? You were obliged to speak ! 
Well, since it's all over, I don't mind saying that I 
did have some slight apprehensions that something 
in the way of a declaration might be extorted from 
you.'' 

He : " Extorted ? Oh ! " He makes an impas- 
sioned rush toward her. 

She, keeping the table between them : " No, no." 

He : " Oh, I merely wished to ask why you chose 
to make me suffer so, after I had come to the 
point." 

She : " Ask it across the table, then." After a 
moment's reflection, " I made you suffer — I made 
you suffer — so that you might have a realizing 
sense of what you had made 7ne suffer." 

He, enraptured by this confession : " Oh, you 
angel ! " 

She, with tender magnanimity: "No; only a 
woman — a poor, trusting, foolish woman ! " She 
permits him to surround the table, with imaginable 
results. Then, with her head on his shoulder: 



152 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

" You'll never let me regret it, will you, darling ? 
You'll never oblige me to punish you again, dearest, 
will you ? Oh, it hurt me far worse to see your 
pain than it did you to — to — feel it ! " On the 
other side of the partition, ilfr. Grinnidge^s pipe 
falls from his lips, parted in slumber, and shivers 
to atoms on the register. " Oh ! " She flies at the 
register with a shriek of dismay, and is about to 
close it. " That wretch has been listening, and has 
heard every word ! " 

He, preventing her : " What wretch ? Where ? " 

She : " Don't you hear him, mumbling and 
grumbling there ? " 

Grinnidge : " Well, I swear ! Cash value of 
twenty-five dollars, and untold toil in coloring it ! " 

Hansom, listening with an air of mystification: 
"Who's that?" 

She : " Gummidge, Grimmidge — whatever you 
called him. Oh ! " She arrests herself in con- 
sternation. " Now I have done it ! '^ 

He : " Done what ? " 

She: '' Oh — nothing ! ^^ 

2Ie : '' I don't understand. Do you mean to say 
that my friend Grinnidge's room is on the other 
side of the wall, and that you can hear him talk 



AND OTHER FARCES. 153 

througli the register ? '' She preserves the silence 
of abject terror. He stoops over the register, and 
calls down it. " Grinnidge ! Hallo ! " 

Grinnidge : " Hallo, yourself ! " 

Ransom, to Miss Heed : " Sounds like the ghostly- 
squeak of the phonograph." To Gririfiidge : 
" What's the trouble ? " 

Grinnidge : " Smashed my pipe. Dozed off and 
let it drop on this infernal register." 

Ransomy turning from the register with impres- 
sive deliberation : " Miss Eeed, may I ask hoiv you 
came to know that his name was Gummidge, or 
Grimmidge, or whatever I called him ? " 

She : Oh, dearest, I ca7iH tell you ! Or — yes, I 
had better." Impulsively : " I will judge you by 
myself. / could forgive you anything ! " 

He, doubtfully : " Oh, could you ? " 

She : " Everything ! I had — I had better make 
a clean breast of it. Yes, I had. Though I don't 
like to. I — I listened ! " 

He: "Listened?" 

She: "Through the register to — to — what — 
you — were saying before you — came in here." 
Her head droops. 

He : " Then you heard everything ? " 



154 THE SLEEPLNG-CAU 

She : " Kill me, but don't look so at me ! It was 
accidental at first — indeed it was ; and then I 
recognized your voice ; and then I knew you were 
talking about me ; and I had so much at stake ; 
and I did love you so dearly ! You will forgive 
me, darling? It wasn't as if I were listening 
with any bad motive." 

He, taking her in his arms : " Forgive you ? Of 
course I do. But you must change this room at 
once, Ethel ; you see you hear everything on the 
other side, too." 

She: "Oh, not if you whisper on this. You 
couldn't hear us ? " At a dubious expression of 
his : " You didnH hear us ? If you did, I can 
never forgive you ! " 

He : "It was accidental at first — indeed it was ; 
and then I recognized your voice ; and then I 
knew you were talking about me ; and I had so 
much at stake ; and I did love you so dearly ! '^ 

She : " All that has nothing whatever to do with 
it. How much did you hear ? " 

He, with exemplary meekness : " Only what you 
were saying before Grinnidge came in. You didn't 
whisper then. I had to wait there for him 
while " — 



AND OTHER FARCES. 155 

She : " While you were giving your good resolu- 
tions a rest ? " 

He : " WMle I was giving my good resolutions a 
rest." 

She: "And that accounts for your determina- 
tion to humble yourself so ? " 

He: "It seemed perfectly providential that I 
should have known just what conditions you were 
going to exact of me." 

She : " Oh, don't make light of it ! I can tell 
you it's a very serious matter." 

He: "It was very serious for me when you 
didn't meet my self-abasement as you had led me 
to expect you would." 

She : " Don't make fun ! I'm trying to think 
whether I can forgive you." 

He, with insinuation : " Don't you believe you 
could think better if you put your head on my 
shoulder ? " 

She : " Nonsense ! Then I should forgive you 
without thinking." After a season of reflection : 
" No, I canH forgive you. I never could forgive 
eavesdropping. It's too low." 

He, in astonishment: "Why, you did it your- 
self!" 



156 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

She : " But you began it. Besides, it's very 
different for a man. Women are weak, poor, help- 
less creatures. They have to use finesse. But a 
man should be above it." 

He : " You said you could forgive me anything." 

She : " Ah, but I didn't know what you'd been 
doing ! " 

ITe, with pensive resignation, and a feint of 
going : " Then I suppose it's all over between us." 

She, relenting : " If you could think of any 
reason why I should forgive you " — 

He : " I can't." 

She, after consideration : "Do you suppose Mr. 
Grumage, or Grimidge, heard too ? " 

He : " No ; Grinnidge is a very high-principled 
fellow, and wouldn't listen ; besides, he wasn't 
there, you know." 

She : " Well, then, I will forgive you on these 
grounds." He instantly catches her to his heart. 
*^But these alone, remember." 

He, rapturously : " Oh', on any ! " 

She, tenderly : *^ And you'll always be devoted ? 
And nice ? And not try to provoke me ? Or neg- 
lect me ? Or anything ? '!. , 

He : " Always ! Never ! " ' * 



AND OTHER FARCES. 157 

She : " Oh, you dear, sweet, simple old thing — 
how I do love you ! " 

Grinnidge, who has been listening attentively to 
every word at the register at his side : " Ransom, 
if you don't want me to go stark mad, shut the 
register ! " 

Ransom, about to comply : " Oh, poor old man ! 
I forgot it was open ! '' 

Miss Reed, preventing him : " No ! If he has 
been vile enough to listen at a register, let him 
suffer. Come, sit down here, and I'll tell you just 
when I began to care for you. It was long before 
the cow. Do you remember that first morning 
after you arrived " — She drags him close to the 
register, so that every word may tell upon the 
envious Grinnidge, on whose manifestations of 
acute despair, a rapid curtain descends. 



THE ELEVATOR. 

FASCE. 



THi^ ^.EVATOR. 



Scene : Through the curtained doorway of Mrs. 
Edward Roberts's pretty drawing-room, in Hotel 
Bellingham, shows the snowy and gleaming 
array of a table set for dinner, under the dim 
light of gas-burners turned low. An air of 
expectancy pervades the place, and the uneasi- 
ness of Mr. Roberts, in evening dress, expresses 
something more as he turns from a glance into 
the dining-room, and still holding the portiere 
with one hand, takes out his watch with the 
other. 

Mr. Roberts to Mrs. Roberts entering the draw- 
ing-room from regions beyond : " My dear, it's six 
o'clock. What can have become of your aunt ? " 

Mrs. Roberts, with a little anxiety : " That was 
just what I was going to ask. She's never late ; 
and the children are quite heart-broken. They 
161 



162 THE SLEEPING-CAK 

had counted upon seeing her, and t- 
mas a little before they were put 

Roberts : " Very singular ' ^ is 

she going to begin standi -ig upon eereiii;yi.<y with 
us, and not come till the ho. "^ " 

Mrs. Roberts : " Nonsense, Lu . ! She's been 
detained. Of course she'll be here in a moment. 
How impatient you are ! " 

Roberts: "You must profit by me as an awful 
example." 

Mrs. Roberts, going about the room, and be- 
stowing little touches here and there on its orna- 
ments : " If you'd had that new cook to battle 
with over this dinner, you'd have learned patience 
by this time without any awful example." 

Roberts, dropping nervously into the nearest 
chair: "I hope she isn't behind time." 

Mrs. Roberts, drifting upon the sofa, and dispos- 
ing her train effectively on the carpet around^ her : 
" She's before time. The dinner is in the last 
moment of ripe perfection now, when we must 
still give people fifteen minutes' grace." She 
studies the convolutions of her train absent- 
mindedly. 

Roberts, joining in its perusal : " Is that the 



AND OTHER FAECES. 163 



way you've arranged to be sitting when people 



come m i 



9 J? 




Mrs. Roberts: "Of course not. I shall get up 
to receive them." 

Roberts: "That's rather a pity. To destro:jr 
such a lovely pose." 

Mrs. Roberts : " Do you like it ? " 

Roberts : " It's divine." 
/Mrs. Roberts : " You might throw me a kiss." 

Roberts : " No ; if it happened to strike on that 
train anywhere, it might spoil one of the folds. 
I can't risk it." A ring is heard at the apart- 
ment door. They spring to their feet simultane- 
ously. J 

Mrs. Roberts : " There's Aunt Mary now ! " She 
calls into the vestibule, " Aunt Mary ! " 

Dr. Lawton, putting aside the vestibule portiere, 
with affected timidity : " Very sorry. Merely a 
father." 

Mrs. Roberts : " Oh ! Dr. Lawton ? I am so glad to 
see you ! " She gives him her hand : " I thought 
it was my aunt. We can't understand why she 
hasn't come. Why ! where's Miss Lawton ? " 

Lawton : " That is precisely what I was going 
to ask you." 



164 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

Mrs. Roberts : " Why, she isn't here." 

Lawton: ^' So it seems. I left her with the 
carriage at the door when I started to walk here. 
She called after me down the stairs that she 
would be ready in three seconds, and begged me 
to hurry, so that we could come in together, and 
not let people know I'd saved half a dollar by 
walking." 

Mrs. Roberts : " She's been detained too ! " 
— Roberts, coming forward : *^ Now you know what 
it is to have a delinquent Aunt-Mary-in-law." 

Lawton, shaking hands with him : " Koberts ! 
Is that you ? It's astonishing how little one 
makes of the husband of a lady who gives a 
dinner. In my time — a long time ago — he used 
to carve. But nowadays, when everything is 
served a la Russe, he might as well be abolished. 
Don't you think, on the whole, Eoberts, you'd 
better not have come ? " 

Roberts: "Well, you see, I had no excuse. I 
hated to say an engagement when I hadn't any." 

Lawton : " Oh, I understand. You wanted to 

come. We all do, when Mrs. Eoberts will let us." 

\ He goes and sits down by Mrs. Roberts, who 

has taken a more provisional pose on the sofa. 



AND OTHER FAECES. 165 

" Mrs. Roberts, you're the only woman in Boston 
who could hope to get people, with a fireside of 
their own — or a register — out to a Christmas 
dinner. You know I still wonder at your effront- 
ery a little?) 

Mrs. Eob^ts, laughing : " I knew I should catch 
you if I baited my hook with your old friend." 

Laivton : " Yes, nothing would have kept me 
away when I heard Bemis was coming. But he 
doesn't seem so inflexible in regard to me. Where 
is he ? " 

Mrs. Roberts : " I'm sure I don't know. I'd no 
idea I was giving such a formal dinner. But 
everybody, beginning with my own aunt, seems 
to think it a ceremonious occasion. There are only 
to be twelve. Do you know the Millers ? " 

Lawton : " No, thank goodness ! One meets 
some people so often that one fancies one's weari- 
ness of them reflected in their sympathetic counte- 
nances. Who are these acceptably novel Millers ? " 

Mrs. Roberts: "Do explain the Millers to the 
doctor, Edward." 

Roberts, standing on the hearth-rug, with his 
thumbs in his waistcoat pockets : " They board." 

Lawton : " Genus. That accounts for their will- 




166 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

ingness to flutter round your evening lamp when 
they ought to be singeing their wings at their. 
own. Well, species ? " 

Roberts : " They're very nice young newly mar- 
ried people. He's something or other of some 
kind of manufactures. And Mrs. Miller is dis- 
posed to think that all the other ladies are as fond 
of him as she is." 

Mrs. Roberts : " Oh ! That is not so, Edward." 

Lawton: "You defend your sex, as women 
always do. But you'll admit that, as your friend, 
Mrs. Miller may have this foible." 

Mrs. Roberts: "I admit nothing of the kind. 
And we've invited another young couple who 
haven't gone to housekeeping yet — the Curwens. 
And he has the same foible as Mrs. Miller." Mrs, 
Roberts takes out her handkerchief, and laughs 
into it. 

Lawton : " That is, if Mrs. Miller has it, which 
we both deny. Let us hope that Mrs. Miller and 
Mr. Curwen may not get to making eyes at each 
other.'^ 

Roberts : " And Mr. Bemis and his son complete 
the list. Why, Agnes, there are only ten. You 
said there were twelve." 



AND OTHER FARCES. 167 

Mrs. Roberts : " Well, never mind. I meant ten. 
I forgot that the Somerses declined." A ring is 
heard. " Ah ! thafs Aunt Mary." She runs into 
the vestibule, and is heard exclaiming without: 
^' Why, Mrs. Miller, is it you ? I thought it was 
my aunt. Where is Mr. Miller?" 

Mrs. Miller, entering the drawing-room arm in 
arm with her hostess : " Oh, he'll be here directly. 
I had to let him run back for my fan." 

Mrs. Roberts: "Well, we're very glad to have 
you to begin with. Let me introduce Dr. Lawton." 

Mrs. Miller, in a polite murmur : "' Dr. Lawton." 
In a louder tone : " Mr. Koberts ! " 

Lawton f "You see, Eoberts ? The same ag- 
grieved surprise at meeting you here that I 
felt." 

Mrs. Miller: "What in the world do you 
mean ? " 

Lawton : " Don't you think that when a husband 
is present at his wife's dinner party he repeats 
the mortifying superfluity of a bridegroom at a 
wedding ? " 

Mrs. Miller : " I'm sur^e I don't know what you 
mean. I should never think of giving a dinner 
without Mr. Miller." 



168 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

Lawton : " No ? " A^ ring is heard. " There's 
Bemis." 

3Irs. Miller: "It's Mr. Miller." JJ 

Mrs. Roberts : " Aunt Mary at last ! " As she 
bustles toward the door : " Edward, there are 
twelve — Aunt Mary and Willis." 

Roberts : " Oh, yes. I totally forgot Willis." 

Lawton : " Who's Willis ? " 

Roberts: "Willis? Oh, Willis is my wife's 
brother. We always have him." 

Lawton : " Oh, yes, Campbell." 

Mrs. Roberts, without : " Mr. Bemis ! So kind 
of you to come on Christmas." 

Mr. Bemis, without : " So kind of you to ask us 
houseless strangers." 

Mrs. Roberts, without : " I ran out here, think- 
ing it was my aunt. She's played us a trick, and 
hasn't come yet." 

Bemis, entering the drawing-room with Mrs. 
Roberts: "I hope she won't fail altogether. I 
haven't met her for twenty years, and I counted 
so much upon the pleasure — Hello, Lawton ! " 

Lawton: ''HviWo, old fellow!" They fly at 
each other, and shake handsl^i* Glad to see you 
again." 



AND OTHER FARCES. 169 

Bemis, reaching his left hand to Mr. Boherts, 
while Mr. Lawton keeps his right : " Ah ! Mr. 
Eoberts." 

Lawton : " Oh, never mind him. He's merely 
the husband of the hostess/' 

Mrs. Miller, to Roberts : " What does he mean ? " 

Roberts : " Oh, nothing. Merely a joke he's ex- 
perimenting with." 

Lawton to Bemis : " Where's your boy ? " 

Bemis : " He'll be here directly. He preferred 
to walk. Where's your girl ? " 

Lawton : " Oh, she'll come by and by. She pre- 
ferred to drive." 

Mrs. Roberts, introducing them: "Mr. Bemis, 
have you met Mrs. Miller?" She drifts away 
again, manifestly too uneasy to resume even a 
provisional pose on the sofa, and walks detachedly 
about the room. 

Bemis : " What a lovely apartment Mrs. Koberts 
has." 

Mrs. Miller : " Exquisite ! But then she has 
such perfect taste." , 

Bemis, to Mrs. Roberts, who drifts near them : 
"We were talking about your apartment, Mrs. 
Roberts. It's charming." 



170 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

Mrs. Roberts : " It is nice. It's the ideal way 
of living. All on one floor. Ko stairs. Nothing." 

Bemis : " Yes, when once you get here ! But 
that little matter of five pair up " — 

Mrs. Roberts : " You clon't mean to say you 
walked up ! Why in the world didn't you take 
the elevator ? " 

Bemis : " I didn't know you had one." 

Mrs. Roberts : " It's the only thing that makes 
life worth living in a flat. All these apartment 
hotels have them." 

Bemis : " Bless me ! Well, you see, I've been 
away from Boston so long, and am back so short a 
time, that I can't realize your luxuries and con- 
\ veniences. [Iti Florence we always walk up. 
^ They have ascenseurs in a few great hotels, and 
they brag of it in immense signs on the sides of 
the building. 'M 

Lawton : \^hat pastoral simplicity ! We are 
elevated here to a degree that you caa't conceive 
of, gentle shepherdj Has youra^got an air-cushion, 
Mrs. Eoberts ? " 

Mrs. Roberts : " An air-cushion ? What's that ? " 

Lawton : " The only thing that makes your life 
worth a moment's purchase in an elevator. You 



AND OTHER FARCES. 171 

get in with a glass of water, a basket of eggs, and 
a file of the ^ Daily Advertiser.' They cut the 
elevator loose at the top, and you drop." 

Both Ladies: "Oh!" 
\jjawton: "In three seconds you arrive at the 
ground-floor, reading your file of the ^ Daily 
Advertiser ; ' not an Qg^ broken nor a drop spilled. 
I saw it done in a New York hotel. The air is 
compressed under the elevator, and acts as a sort 
of ethereal buffer." 

Mrs. Roberts : " And why don't we always go 
down in that way ? " 

Laivton : " Because sometimes the walls of the 
elevator shaft give out." 

Mrs. Roberts : " And what then ? " 

Lawton : " Then the elevator stops more abruptly. 
I had a friend who tried it when this happened." 

Mrs. Roberts : " And what did he do ? " "^v 

Lawton : " Stepped out of the elevator ; laughed ; 
cried ; went home : got into bed : and did not get 
up for six weeks. Nervous shock. He was 
fortunate." 

Mrs. Miller : " I shouldn't think you'd want an 
air-cushion on your elevator, Mrs. Eoberts." 

Mrs. Roberts: "No, indeed! Horrid!" The 



172 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

bell rings^/ "Edward, you go and see if that's 
Aunt Mary." 

Mrs. Miller : " It's Mr. Miller, I know." 

Bemis: " Or^oay son."^ 

Lawton : " My voice is for Mrs. Eoberts's 
brother. I've given up all hopes of my daughter." 
- Roberts, without : " Oh, Curwen ! Glad to see 
you ! Thought you were my wife's aunt." 

Lawton, at a suppressed sigh from Mrs. Roberts : 
"It's one of his jokes, Mrs. Eoberts. Of course 
it's your aunt." 

Mrs. Roberts, through her set teeth, smilingly : 
" Oh, if it is, I'll make him suffer for it." 

Mr. Curwen, without : " No, I hated to wait, so 
I walked up." 

Lawton : " It is Mr. Curwen, after all, Mrs. 
Robert sj_ Now let me see how a lady transmutes ' 
a frown of threatened vengeance into a smile of 
society welcome." J ^2^ t^v^T 

Mrs. Roberts : " Well, look ! " To Mr. Curwen, 
who enters, followed by her husband : " Ah, Mr. 
Curwen ! So glad to see you. You know all our 
friends here — Mrs. Miller, Dr. Lawton, and Mr. 
Bemis ? " 

Curwen, smiling and bowing, and shaking hands 



AND OTHER FARCES. 17^ 

right and left: "Very glad — very happy — 
pleased to know you.'' 

Mrs. Roberts, behind her fan to Dr. Lawton: 

t ' 

"Didn't I do it beautifully?" 

Lawton^ behind his hand : " Wonderfully ! And 
so unconscious of the fact that he hasn't his wife 
with him." 

Mrs. Roberts, in great astonishment, to Mr. 
Curwen : " Where in the world is Mrs. Curwen ? " 

Curwen : " Oh — oh — she'll be here. I thought 
she ivas here. She started from home with two 
right-hand gloves, and I had to go back for a left, 
and I — I suppose — Good heavens ! " pulling 
the glove out of his pocket. "I ought to have 
sent it to her in the ladies' dressing-room." He 
remains with the glove held up before him, in 
spectacular stupefaction. 

Lawton: "Only imagine what Mrs. Curwen 
would be saying of you if she were in the dress- 
ing-room." 

Roberts : " Mr. Curwen felt so sure she was 
there that he wouldn't wait to take the elevator, 
and walked up. " Another ring is heard. " Shall 
I go and meet your aunt now, my dear ? " 

Mrs. Roberts : " No, indeed ! She may come in 



174 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

now with all the formality she chooses, and I will 
receive her excuses in state." She waves her fan 
softly to and fro, concealing a murmur of trepida- 
tion under an indignant air, till the portiere opens, 
and Mr. Willis Campbell enters. Then Mrs. 
Roberts breaks in nervous agitation ""\yhy, 
Willis ! Where's Aunt Mary ? '^ 
Mrs. Miller : "And Mr. Miller ? " 
Curwen : " And Mrs. Curwen ? " 
Lawton : " And my daughter ? " 
Bemis : " And my son ? " 

Mr. Campbell, looking tranquilly round on the 
faces of his interrogators : " Is it a conundrum ? " 
Mrs. Roberts, mingling a real distress with an 
effort of mock-heroic solemnity : " It is a tragedy ! 
Willis dear ! it's what you see — what you hear ; 
a niece without an aunt, a wife without a husband, 
a father without a son, and another father with- 
out a daughter." 

Roberts : " And a dinner getting cold, and a cook" 
getting hot." 

Laivton : " And you are expected to account for 
+he whole situation." 

Campbell : " Oh, I understand ! I don't know 
what your little game is, Agnes, but I can wait 
and see. Vm not hungry." 



AND OTHER FARCES. 175 

Mrs. Roberts : "Willis, do you think I would 
try and play a trick on you, if I could ? '^ 

Campbell : " I think you can't. Come, now, 
Agnes ! It's a failure. Own up, and bring the 
rest of the company out of the next room. I sup- 
pose almost anything is allowable at this festive 
season, but this is pretty feeble." 

3Irs. Roberts : " Indeed, indeed, they are not 
■there." 

Campbell : " Where are they, then ? " 
' All : " That's what we don't know." 

Campbell : " Oh, come, now ! that's a little too 
thin. You don't know where any of all these 
blood-relations and connections by marriage are ? 
Well, search me ! " 

Mrs. Roberts, in open distress: "Oh, I'm sure 
something must have happened to Aunt Mary ! " 

Mrs. Miller: "I can't understand what Ellery 
C. Miller means." 

' ^'Lawton, with a simulated sternness : " I hope 
you haven't let that son of yours run away with 
my daughter, Bemis ? " 

Bemis : " I'm afraid he's come to a pass where 
he wouldn't ask my leave." 

Curwen, re-assuring himself : " Ah, she's all 
right, of course. I know that " — 



176 THE SLEEPING-CAB 

Bemis : " Miss Lawton ? " 
Curiven : " No, no — Mrs. Curwen.'* 
Campbell : " Is it a true bill, Agnes ? " 
Mrs. Roberts : " Indeed it is, Willis. WeVe 
been expecting her for an hour — of course she 
always comes early — and I'm afraid she's been 
taken ill suddenly.'* 

Roberts : " Oh, I don't think it's that, my dear.'* 
Mrs. Roberts : " Oh, of course you never think 
anything's wrong, Edward. My whole family 
might die, and " — Mrs. Roberts restrains herself, 
and turns to Mr. Campbell, with hysterical cheerful- 
ness : " Who came up in the elevator with you ? " 

Campbell : " Me ? / didn't come in the elevator. 
I had my usual luck. The elevator was up some- 
where, and after I'd pressed the annunciator 
button till my thumb ached, I watched my chance 
and walked up." 

Mrs. Roberts : " Where was the janitor ? " 
Campbell: "Where the janitor always is — 
nowhere." 
\^ Lawton : "Eating his Christmas dinner, proba- 



w-U 



* — Mrs. Roberts, partially abandoning and then 
recovering herself: "Yes, it's perfectly spoiled.' 



AND OTHER FARCES. 177 

Well, friends, I think we'd better go to dinner — 
that's the only way to bring them. I'll go out 
and interview the cook." Sotto voce to her hus- 
band : " If I don't go somewhere and have a cry, 
I shall break down here before everybody. Did 
you ever know anything so strange? It's per- 
fectly — pokerish." _7 

Lawton : " ¥es, there's nothing like serving din- 
ner to bring the belated guest. It's as infallible 
as going without an umbrella when it won't rain." 

Camjyhell : " No, no ! Wait a minute, Eoberts. 
You might sit down without one guest, but you 
can't sit down without five. It's the old joke 
about the part of Hamlet. | I'll just step round to 
Aunt Mary's house — why, I'll be back in three 
minutes." 

Mrs. Roberts, with perfervid gratitude : " Oh, 
how good you are, Willis ! You don't know how 
much you're doing ! What presence of mind you 
have ! Why couldn't we have thought of sending 
for her ? O Willis, I can never be grateful enough 
to you ! But you always think of everything." 

Roberts: '^I accept my punishment meekly, 

Willis, since it's in your honor." 

Lawton: "It's a simple and beautiful solution, 



178 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

Mrs. Koberts, as far as your aunt's concerned ; but 
I don't see how it helps the rest of us." 
; Mrs. Miller to Mr. Campbell: "If you meet 
^Mr. Miller " — 

Curwen : " Or my wife " — 

Bemis : " Or my son " — 

Lawton : "Or my daughter " — 

Campbell: "I'll tell them they've just one 
chance in a hundred to save their lives, and that 
one is open to them for just five minutes." 

Lawton : " Tell my daughter that I've been here 
half an hour, and everybody knows I drove here 
with her." 

Bemis : " Tell my son that the next time I'll 
walk, and let him drive." 

Mrs. Miller : " Tell Mr. Miller I found I had 
my fan after all." 

Curwen: "And Mrs. Curwen that I've got her 
glove all right." He holds it up. 

Mi's. Roberts, at a look of mystification and 
demand from her brother : " Never mind explana- 
tions, Willis. They'll understand, and we'll ex- 
plain when you get back." 

Lawton, examining the glove which Curwen 
holds up : " Why, so it is right ! " 



AND OTHER FARCES. 1T9 

Curwen : " What do you mean ? " 

Lawton : " Were you sent back to get a left 
glove ? " 

Curwen : " Yes, yes ; of course." 

Lawton : " Well, if you'll notice, this is a right 
one. The one at home is left." 

Curwen, staring helplessly at it: "Gracious 
Powers ! what shall I do ? " 

Lawton : " Pray that Mrs. Curwen may never 
come." 

Mr. Curwen, dashing through the door : " I'll be 
back by the time Mr. Campbell returns." 
[^ Mrs. Miller, with tokens of breaking down visible 
to Mrs. Roberts : *• I wonder what could have kept 
Mr. Miller. It's so very mysterious, I " — 

Mrs. Roberts, suddenly seizing her by the arm, 
and hurrying her from the room : " Now, Mrs. 
Miller, you've just got time to see my baby." 
- Mr. Roberts, winking at his remaining guests: 
" A little cry will do them good. I saw as soon 
as Willis came in instead of her aunt, that my 
wife couldn't get through without it. They'll 
come back as bright as " — ^ 

Lawton: "Bemis, should you mind a bereaved 
father falling upon your neck ? " 



180 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

Bemis : " Yes Lawton, I think I should." 
Lawton : " Well, it is rather odd about all those 
people. You can say of one or two that they've 
been delayed, but five people can't have been 
delayed. It's too much. It amounts to a coin- 
cidence. Hello ! What's that ? " 
Roberts : " What's what ? " 
Lawton : " I thought I heard a cry." 
Roberts : " Very likely you did. They profess 
to deaden these floors so that you can't hear from 
one apartment to another. But I know pretty 
well when my neighbor overhead is trying to 
wheel his baby to sleep in a perambulator at three 
o'clock in the morning ; and I guess our young 
lady lets the people below understand when she's 
wakeful. But it's the only way to live, after all. 
I wouldn't go back to the old up-and-down-stairs, 
house-in-a-block system on any account. Here we 
all live on the ground-floor practically. The 
elevator equalizes everything." 

Bemis : " Yes, when it happens to be where you 
are. I believe I prefer the good old Florentine 
fashion of walking upstairs, after all." 

Laivton: "Roberts, I did hear something. 
Hark ! It sounded like a cry for help. There ! " 



AND OTHER FARCES. 181 

— Roberts : " You're nervous, doctor. It's nothing. 
However, it's easy enough to go out and see." He 
goes out to the door of the apartment, and imme- 
diately returns. He beckons to Dr. Lawton and 
Mr. Bemls, with a mysterious whisper: "Come 
here both of you. Don't alarm the ladies.'* 



182 THE SLEEPING-CAR 



IL 



In the interior of the elevator are seated Mrs. 
Roberts's Aunt Mary (Mrs. Crashaw), 3Irs. 
Curwen, and Miss Lawton; Mr. Miller and Mr. 
Alfred Bemls are stajiding with their hats in 
• their hands. They are in dinner costume, with, 
their overcoats on their arms, and the ladies' 
draperies and ribbons show from under their 
outer wraps, where they are caught up, and held 
with that caution which characterizes ladies in 
sitting attitudes which they liave not been able 
to choose deliberately. As they talk together, 
the elevator rises very slowly, and they continue 
talking for some time before they observe that it 
has stopped. 

Mrs. Crashaw : ^' It's very fortunate that we are 
all here together. I ought to have been here half 
an hour ago, but I was kept at home by an acci- 
dent to my finery, and before I could be put in 
repair I heard it striking the quarter past. I 



AND OTHER FAECES. 183 

don't know what my niece will say to me. I hope 

you good people will all stand by me if she should 

be violent." 

r Miller: "In what a poor man may with his 

wife's fan, you shall command me, Mrs. Crashaw." 

lie takes the fan out, and unfurls it. 

^ ii Mrs. Crashaw : " Did she send you back for 

it ? " 

Miller : " I shouldn't have had the pleasure of 
arriving with you if she hadn't." .J 

Mrs. Crashaw, laughing, to Mrs. Curwen.- 
" What did you send yours back for, my dear ? " 

Mrs. Curwen, thrusting out one hand gloved, 
and the other ungloved: "I didn't want two 
rights." 

Young Mr. Bemis : " Not even women's rights ? " 

Mrs. Curwen : " Oh, so young and so depraved ! 
Are all the young men in Florence so bad ? " 
Surveying her extended arms, which she turns 
over : " I don't know that I need have sent him 
for the other glove. I could have explained to 
Mrs. Eoberts. Perhaps she would have forgiven 
my coming in one glove. '^ 

Miller, looking down at the pretty arms: "If 
she had seen you without." 



184 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

M7's. Curwen : " Oh, you were looking ! " She 
rapidly involves her arms in her wrap. Then she 
suddenly unwraps them, and regards them thought- 
fully. "What if he should bring a ten-button 
instead of an eight ! And he's quite capable of 
doing it." 

Miller: "Are there such things as ten-button 
gloves ? " 

Mrs. Curwen : " You would think there were 
ten-thousand button gloves if you had them to 
button." 

Miller : " It would depend upon whom I had to 
button them for." 

Mrs. Ctincen : " For Mrs. Miller, for example. "J 

ili?'s. Crashaw : " We women are too bad, always 
sending people back for something. It's well the 
men don't know Itow bad." 

3Irs. Curwen : " 'Sh ! Mr. Miller is listening. 
And he thought we were perfect. He asks noth- 
ing better than to be sent back for his wife's fan. 
And he doesn't say anything even under his 
breath when she finds she's forgotten it, and 
begins, 'Oh, dearest, my fan' — Mr. Curwen does. 
But he goes all the same. I hope you have your 
father in good training, Miss Lawton. You must 



. AXD OTHER FARCES. 185 

commence with your' father, if you expect your 
husband to be ^ good.' "; 

Miss Lawton: "Then mine will never behave, 
for papa is perfectly incorrigible." 

Mrs. Curiven : " I'm sorry to hear such a bad 
report of him. Shouldn't you think he would be 
^ good/ Mr. Bemis ? " 

Young Mr. Bemis: "I should think he would 
try." 

Mrs. Curwen: "A diplomat, as well as a 
punster already ! I must warn Miss Lawton." 

Jf/'s. Crashaw, interposing to spare the young 
people : " What an amusing thing elevator etiquette 
is ! Why should the gentlemen take their hats 
off? , Why don't you take your hats off in a 
horse^car ? " 

Miller: "The theory is that the elevator is a 
room." 

Young Mr. Bemis : "We were at a hotel in 
London where they called it the Ascending 
Room." 

Miss Lawton : " Oh, how amusing ! " 

Miller, looking about : " This is a regular draw- 
ing-room for size and luxury. They're usually 
such cribs in these hotels." 



186 THE SLEEPING-CAE 

tLjUts. Crashaw : "Yes, it's very nice, though I 
say it that shouldn't of my niece's elevator. The 
I worst about it is, it's so slow." 
J Miller : " Let's hope it's sure." 

Young Mr. Bemis : " Some of these elevators iiL 
^ America go up like express trains." | 

Mrs. Curwen, drawing her shawl about her 
shoulders, as if to be ready to step out : " Well, I 
never get into one without taking my life in my 
hand, and my heart in my mouth. I suppose 
every one really expects an elevator to drop with 
them, some day, just as everybody really expects 
to see a ghost some time." 

Mrs. Crashaia : " Oh, my dear ! what an ex- 
tremely disagreeable subject of conversation." 

Mrs. Curwen : " I can't help it, Mrs. Crashaw. 
When I reflect that there are two thousand eleva- 
tors in Boston, and that the inspectors have just 
pronounced a hundred and seventy of them un- 
safe, I'm so desperate when I get into one that I 
could — flirt!" 

Miller, guarding himself with the fan: "Not 
with me ? " 

Miss Lawton, to young Mr. Bemis : " How it 
does creep ! " 



AND OTHER FARCES. 187 

Youn^ Mr. Bemis, looking down fondly at her : 
"Oh, does it?" 

Mrs. Crashaw : "Why, it doesn't go at all ! It's 
stopped. Let us get out." They all rise. 

The Elevator Boy, pulling at the rope : " We're 
not there, yet." 

Mrs. Crashaw, with mingled trepidation and 
severity: "Not there? What are you stopping, 
then, for ? " 

The Elevator Boy : " I don't know. It seems to 
be caught." 

Mrs. Crashaw : " Caught ? " 

Miss Lawton : " Oh, dear ! " 

Young Mr. Bemis : " Don't mind." 

Miller : " Caught ? Nonsense ! " 

Mrs. Curiven : " We're caught, I should say." 
She sinks back on the seat. 

The Elevator Boy : " Seemed to be going kind of 
funny all day ! " He keeps tugging at the rope. 

Miller, arresting the boy's efforts : " Well, hold 
on — stop ! What are you doing ? " 

The Elevator Boy : " Trying to make it go." 

Miller: "Well, don't be so— violent about it. 
You might break something." 

The Elevator Boy: "Break a wire rope like 
that!" 



188 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

Miller: "Well, well, be quiet now. Ladies, I 
think you'd better sit down — and as gently as 
possible. I wouldn't move about much." 

Mrs. Curwen : " Move ! We're stone. And I 
wish for my part I were a feather." 

Miller, to the boy: "Er — a — er — where do 
you suppose we are ? '^ 

The Elevator Boy : " We're in the shaft between 
the fourth and fifth floors." He attempts a fresh 
demonstration on the rope, but is prevented. 

Miller: " Hold on ! Er — er" — 

Mrs. Crashaw, as if the boy had to be com- 
municated with through an interpreter: "Ask 
him if it's ever happened before.'^ 

Miller : " Yes. Were you ever caught before ? " 

Th^ Elevator Boy : " No."' 

Miller: "He says no." 

Mrs. Crashaiv : " Ask him if the elevator has a 
safety device." 

Miller : " Has it got a safety device ? " 

The Elevator Boy : " How should I know ? " 

Miller : " He says he don't know." 

Mrs. Curwen, in a shriek of hysterical laughter : 
" Why, he understands English ! " 

Mrs. Crashaw, sternly ignoring the insinuation ; 



AKD OTHEH FARCES. 189 

"Ask him if there's any means of calling the 
janitor." 

Miller : " Could you call the janitor ? " 

The Elevator Boy, ironically : " Well, there ain't 
any telephone attachment." 

Miller, solemnly : " No, he says there isn't." 

Mrs. Crashaw, sinking back on the seat with 
resignation : " Well, I don't know what my niece 
will say." 

Miss Lawton : " Poor papa ! " 

Young Mr. Bemis, gathering one of her wan- 
dering hands into his : " Don't be frightened. I'm 
sure there's no danger." 

The Elevator Boy, indignantly : "Why, she can't' 
drop. ' The" cogs in the runs won't let her ! " 

All: "Oh!" 

Miller, with a sigh of relief: "I knew there 
must be something of the kind. Well, I wish my 
wife had her fan." 

Mrs. Curwen: "And if I had my left glove I 
should be perfectly happy. Not that I know 
what the cogs in the runs are ! " 

Mrs. Crashaw: "Then we're merely caught 
here ? " 

Miller: "That's all." 



190 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

Mrs. Curiven: "It's quite enough for the pur- 
pose. Couldn't you put on a life-preserver, Mr. Mil- 
ler, and go ashore and get help from the natives ? " 

Miss Lawton, putting her handkerchief to her 
eyes : " Oh, dear ! " 

Mrs. CrashaWy putting her arm around her: 
"Don't be frightened, my child. There's no 
danger." 
y^ Young Mr. Bemis, caressing the hand which he 

holds : " Don't be frightened." 

Miss Lawton : " Don't leave me." 

Young Mr. Bemis: "No, no; I won't. Keep 
fast hold of my hand." 

Miss Lawton : " Oh, yes, I will ! I'm ashamed 
to cry." 

Young Mr. Bemis, fervently : " Oh, you needn't 
be ! It is perfectly natural you should." 

Mrs. Curiven : " I'm too badly scared for tears. 
Mr. Miller, you seem to be in charge of this ex- 
pedition — couldn't you do something? Throw 
out ballast, or let the boy down in a parachute ? 
Or I've read of a shipwreck where the survivors, 
in an open boat, joined in a cry, and attracted the 
notice of a vessel that was going to pass them. 
We might join in a cry." 



1 



AND OTHEH FAECES. 191 

Miller: ^^Oh, it's all very well joking, Mrs. 
Curwen " — 

Mrs. Curwen : " You call it joking ! '^ 

Miller : " But it's not so amusing, being cooped 
up here indefinitely. I don't know how we're to 
get out. We can't join in a cry, and rouse the 
whole house. It would be ridiculous." 

Mrs. Curiven : " And our present attitude is so 
eminently dignified! Well, I suppose we shall 
have to cast lots pretty soon to see which of us 
shall be sacrificed to nourish the survivors. It's 
long past dinner-time." 

Miss Laivton, breaking down: "Oh, donH say 
such terrible things." 

Young Mr. B&niis, indignantly comforting her : 
"Don't, don't cry. There's no danger. It's per- 
fectly safe." 

Miller to the Elevator Boy : " Couldn't you climb 
up the cable, and get on to the landing, and — ah ! 
— get somebody ? " 

The Elevator Boy: "I could, maybe, if there 
was a hole in the roof." 

Miller, glancing up : " Ah ! true." 

Mrs. Crashaw, with an old lady's serious kind- 
ness : " My boy, can't you think of anything to do 
for us ? " 



192 THE SLEEPING-CAU 

The Elevator Boy yielding to the touch of 
humanity, and bursting into tears : ^^ No, ma'am, 
I can't. And everybody's blamin' me, as if I done 
it. What's my poor mother goin' to do ? " 

Mrs. CrashaWj soothingly : " But you said the 
runs in the cogs" — 

The Elevator Boy: "How can I tell! That's 
what they say. They hain't never been tried." 

Mrs. Curwen, springing to her feet : " There ! I 
knew I should. Oh " — She sinks fainting to the 
floor. 

Mrs. Crashaw, abandoning Miss Lawton to the 
ministrations of young Mr. Bemis, while she kneels 
beside Mrs. Curwen and chafes her hand: "Oh, 
poor thing ! I knew she was overwrought by the 
way she was keeping up. Give her air, Mr. 
Miller. Open a — Oh, there isn't any window ! " 

Miller, dropping on his knees, and fanning Mrs, 
Curwen : " There ! there ! Wake up, Mrs. Curwen, 
I didn't mean to scold you for joking. I didn't, 
indeed. I — I — I don't know what the deuce 
I'm up to." He gathers Mrs. Curwen's inanimate 
form in his arms, and fans her face where it lies 
on his shoulder. " I don't know what my wife 
would say if" — 



AND OTHER FAECES. 193 

Mrs. Crashaiv : "She would say that you were 
doing your duty/' 

Miller, a little consoled : " Oh, do you think so ? 
Well, perhaps." 

Young Mr. Bemis : "Do you feel faint at all, 
Miss Lawton ? '^ 

Miss Lawton: "No, I think not. No, not if 
you say it's safe." 

Young Mr. Bemis : " Oh, I'm sure it is ! " 
Miss Lawtdn, renewing her hold upon his hand : 
" Well, then ! Perhaps I hurt you ? " 

Young Mr. Bemis : " No, no ! You couldn't." 
Miss Lawton : " How kind yon are ! " 
Mrs. Curwen, opening her eye^ : *' Where " — 
Miller, rapidly transferring hex to Mrs. Crashaw : 
"Still in the elevator, Mrs. Curwen." Eising to 
his feet : " Something must be done. Perhaps we 
had better unite in a cry. It's ridiculous, of 
course. But it's the only thing we can do. N^w, 
then ! Hello ! " s 

Miss Lawton : " Papa ! " 
Mrs. Crashaw : " Agne-e-e-s ! " 
Mrs. Curwen, faintly : " Waiter ! " 
The Elevator Boij : " Say ! " 
Miller: "Oh, that won't do. All join in 
^Hello!'" 



194 THE SLEEPING-CAB 

All: "Hello!" 

Miller : " Once more ! " 

All: "Hello!" 

Miller : " Once more ! " 

All: "Hello!" 

Miller: "Now wait a while." After an inter- 
val: "No, nobody coming." He takes out his 
watch. " We must repeat this cry at intervals of 
a half-minute. Now, then ! " They all join in 
the cry, repeating it as Mr. Miller makes the 
signal with his lifted hand. 

Miss Lawton : " Oh, it's no use ! " 

Mrs. Crashaw : " They don't hear." 

Mrs. Curwen : " They wonH hear." 

Miller : "Now, then, three times ! " 

All: "Hello! hello! hello!" 



AKD OTHER FAECES. " 195 



III. 



Roberts appears at the outer door of his apartment 
on the fifth floor. It opens upon a spacious 
landing, to which a wide staircase ascends at 
one side. At the other is seen the grated door 
to the shaft of the elevator. He peers about 
on all sides, and listens for a moment before he 
speaks. 

Roberts : " Hello yourself." 

Miller, invisibly from the shaft : " Is that you, 

Roberts ? " 

Roberts : " Yes ; where in the world are you ? " 

Miller : " In the elevator." 

Mrs. Crashaw : " We're all here, Edward." 

Roberts : " What ! You, Aunt Mary ! " 

Mrs. Crashaiv : " Yes. Didn't I say so ? " 

Roberts : "Why don't you come up ? " 

,^- Miller : "We can't. The elevator has got stuck 

somehow." 



196 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

- Roberts: "Got stuck? Bless my soul! How 
did it happen ? How long have you been there ? " 

Mrs. Curwen : " Since the world began ! '^ 
^^Miller: "What's the use asking how it hap- 
pened ? We don't know, and we don't care. 
What we want to do is to get out." 

— Roberts : " Yes, yes ! Be careful ! " He rises 
from his frog-like posture at the grating, and 
walks the landing in agitation. " Just hold on a 
minute ! " 

' Miller : " Oh, we sha'n't stir." 
Roberts : "I'll see what can be done." 
Miller: "Well, see quick, please. We have 

plenty of time, but we don't want to lose any. 

Don't alarm Mrs. Miller, if you can help it." 

— Roberts: "No, no." 

Mrs. Curiven : " You may alarm Mr. Curwen." 

- Roberts : " What ! Are you there ? " 

Mrs. Curwen: "Here? I've been here all my 
life ! " 

-"Roberts: "Ha! ha! ha! That's right. We'll 
soon have you out. Keep up your spirits." 
Mrs. Curwen : " But I'm not keeping them up." 
Miss Lawton : " Tell papa I'm here too." 
Roberts : " Wliat ! You too. Miss Lawton ? " 



AND OTHER FARCES. 197 

Mrs. Crashaw : " Yes, and young Mr. Bemis. 
Didn't I tell you we were all here ? " 
— Roberts : " I couldn't realize it. Well, wait a 
moment." 

Mrs. Curwen : " Oh, you can trust us to wait." 

Roberts, returning with Dr. Lawton, and Mr. 
Bemis, who join him in stooping around the 
grated door of the shaft : " They're just under 
here in the well of the elevator, midway between 
the two stories." 

Laivton : " Ha ! ha ! ha ! You don't say so." 

Bemis : " Bless my heart ! What are they 
doing there ? " 
- Miller : " We're not doing anything." 

Mrs. Curwen : " We're waiting for you to do 
something." 

Miss Lawton : " Oh, papa ! " 

Laivton : " Don't be troubled, Lou, we'll soon 
have you out." 

Young Mr. Bemis : ^' Don't be alarmed, sir. 
Miss Lawton is all right." 

Miss Lawton : " Yes, I'm not frightened, papa." 

Lawton : " Well, that's a great thing in cases of 
this kind. How did you happen to get there ? " 

Miller, indignantly : " How do you suppose ? 
We came up in the elevator." 



198 THE SLEEPES^G-CAR 

i/Lawton : " Well, why didn't you come tlie rest 

ofyfciie way ? " 

V Miller : " The elevator wouldn't." 

Lawton : "What seems to be the matter ? " 

Miller: "We don't know." 

Lawton : " Have you tried to start it ? " 

Miller : " Well, I'll leave that to your imagina- 
tion." 

Lawton : " Well, be careful what you do. You 
might " — 

Miller, interrupting : " Eoberts, who's that 
talking ? " 

- Roberts, coming forward politely : " Oh, excuse 
me ! I forgot that you didn't know each other. 
Dr. Lawton, Mr. Miller." Introducing them. 

Lawton : " Glad to know you." 

Miller : "Very happy to make your acquaint- 
ance, and hope some day to see you. And now, 
if you have completed your diagnosis " — 

Mrs. Curtven : " None of us have ever had it 
before, doctor ; nor any of our families, so far as 
we know." 

\JLawton : " Ha ! ha ! ha ! Very good ! Well, 
just keep quiet. We'll have you all out of there 
presently." 



AND OTHER FARCES. 199 

Bemis : " Yes, remain perfectly still." 
— Roberts : " Yes, we'll have you out. Just wait." 

Miller : " You seem to think we're going to run 
away. Why shouldn't we keep quiet? Do you 
suppose we're going to be -^ery boisterous, shut up 
here like rats in a trap ? " 

Mrs. Curwen : " Or birds in a cage, if you want 
a more pleasing image." j 

Mrs. Crashaw : "How are you going to get us 
out, Edward ? " 
— ^ Roberts : " We don't know yet. But keep 
quiet " — 

^ Miller : " Keep quiet ! Great heavens ! we're 
afraid to stir a finger. Now don't say 'keep 
quiet' any more, for we can't stand it." 
^Lawton: "He's in open rebellion. What are 
you going to do, Eoberts ? " 
-f^ Roberts, rising and scratching his head : " Well, 
I don't know yet. We might break a hole in the 
roof." 

^ Lawton: "Ah, I don't think that would do. 
Besides you'd have to get a carpenter." 
^ Roberts: "That's true. And it would make a 
racket, and alarm the house" — staring desper- 
ately at the grated doorway of the shaft. " If I 



200 THE SLEEPLNG-CAR 

could only find an elevator man — an elevator 
builder! But of course they all live in the 
suburbs, and they're keeping Christmas, and it 
would take too long, anyway." 

Bemis : " Hadn't you better send for the police ? 
It seems to me it's a case for the authorities." 

Lawton: "Ah, there speaks the Europeanized 
mind! They always leave the initiative to the 
authorities. Go out and sound the fire-alarm, 
Roberts. It's a case for the Fire Department." 
-^- Roberts : " Oh, it's all very well to joke. Dr. 
Lawton. Why don't you prescribe something ? " 

Lawton : " Surgical treatment seems to be in- 
dicated, and I'm merely a general practitioner." 
- RobeHs: "If Willis were only here, he'd find 
some way out of it. Well, I'll have to go for 
help somewhere " — 

Mrs. Roberts and Mrs. Miller^ bursting upon the 
scene : " Oh, what is it ? " 

Lawton : " Ah, you needn't go for help, my dear 
fellow. It's come ! " 

Mrs. Roberts: "What are you all doing here, 
Edward ? " 

.,y Mrs. Miller : " Oh, have you had any bad news 
of Mr. Miller ? '^ 



AND OTHER FAECES. 



201 



Mrs. Boherts : " Or Aunt Mary ? " 

Miller, calling up: "Well, are you going to 
keep us here all nigM? Why don't you do 
something ? " 

Mrs. Miller: "Oh, what's that? Oh, it's Mr. 
Miller ! Oh, where are you, EUery ? " 

Miller : " In the elevator." 

Mrs. Miller : " Oh ! and where is the elevator ? 
Why don't you get out ? Oh " — 

Miller : "It's caught, and we can't." 

Mrs, Miller: "Caught? Oh, then you will be 
killed — killed — killed! And it's all my fault, 
sending you back after my fan, and I had it all 
the time in my own pocket; and it comes from 
my habit of giving it to you to carry in your 
overcoat pocket, because it's deep, and the fan 
can't break. And of course I never thought of 
my own pocket, and I never should have thought 
of it at all if Mr. Curwen hadn't been going back 
to get Mrs. Curwen's glove, for he'd brought 
another right after she'd sent him for a left, and 
we were all having such a laugh about it, and I 
just happened to put my hand on my pocket, and 
there I felt the fan. And oh, what shall I do ? " 
Mrs. Miller utters these explanations and self- 



202 THE SLEEPmG-CAR 

reproaches in a lamentable voice, while crouching 
close to the grated door to the elevator shaft, and 
clinging to its meshes. 

Miller : " Well, well, it's all right. I've got you 
another fan, here. Don't be frightened." 

Mrs. RohertSj wildly: "Where's Aunt Mary, 
Edward ? Has Willis got back ? " At a guilty 
look from her husband : " Edward ! donH tell me 
that she^s in that elevator ! Don't do it, Edward ! 
For your own sake don't. Don't tell me that your 
own child's mother's aunt is down there, sus- 
pended between heaven and earth like — like" — 
Lawton : " The coffin of the Prophet." 
Mrs. Roberts : " Yes. DonH tell me, Edward ! 
Spare your child's mother, if you won't spare your 
wife ! " 

Mrs. Crashaw : " Agnes ! don't be ridiculous. 
I'm here, and I never was more comfortable in 
my life." 

Mrs. Roberts, calling down the grating : " Oh ! 
Is it you. Aunt Mary ? " 

Mrs. Crashaw : " Of course it is ! " 
Mrs. Roberts : " You recognize my voice ? " 
Mrs. Crashaw : " I should hope so, indeed / 
Why shouldn't I?" 



AND OTHER FAECES. 203 

Mrs. Roberts : " And you know me ? Agnes ? 
Oh ! " 

Mrs. Crashaw : "Don't be a goose, Agnes/' 

Mrs. Roberts : " Oh, it is you, aunty. It is ! 
Oh, I'm so glad ! I'm so happy ! But keep per- 
fectly still, aunty dear, and we'll soon have you 
out. Think of baby, and don't give way." 

Mrs. Crashaw : " I shall not, if the elevator 
doesn't, you may depend upon that." 

Mrs. Roberts : " Oh, what courage you do have ! 
But keep up your spirits ! Mrs. Miller and I have 
just come from seeing baby. She's gone to sleep 
with all her little presents in her arms. The 
children did want to see you so much before they 
went to bed. But never mind that now, Aunt 
Mary. I'm only too thankful to have you at 
all ! " 

Mrs. Crashaw : " I wish you did have me ! 
And if you will all stop talking and try some of 
you to do something, I shall be greatly obliged 
to you. It's worse than it was in the sleeping-., 
car that night." 

Mrs. Roberts : " Oh, do you remember it. Aunt 
Mary ? Oh, how funny you are ! " Turning 
heroically to her husband : " Now, Edward, dear, 



204 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

get them out. If it's necessary, get them out over 
my dead body. Anything! Only hurry. I will 
be calm ; I will be patient. But you must act 
instantly. Oh, here comes Mr. Curwen ! " Mr. 
Curwen mounts the stairs to the landing with 
every sign of exhaustion, as if he had made a 
very quick run to and from his house. " Oh, he 
will help — I know he will ! Oh, Mr. Curwen, 
the elevator is caught just below here with my 
aunt in it and Mrs. Miller's husband" — 

Lawton : " And my^ girl." 

Bemis : " And my boy." 

Mrs. Curwen, calling up : " And your wife ! " 

Curwen, horror-struck : " And my wife ! Oh, 
heavenly powers ! what are we going to do ? How 
shall we get them out? Why don't they come 
up?" 

All : " They can't." 

Curwen : " Can't ? Oh, my goodness ! " He 
flies at the grating, and kicks and beats it. 

Roberts : " Hold on ! What's the use of that ? " 

Lawton : " You couldn't get at them if you beat 
the door down." 

Bemis .: " Certainly not." They lay hands upon 
him and restrain him. 



AND OTHER FARCES. 205 

Curwen, struggling : " Let me speak to my 
wife ! Will you prevent a husband from speaking 
to his own wife ? '^ 

CMvs. Miller, in blind admiration of his frenzy : 
"Yes, that's just what I said. If some one had 
beaten the door in at once " — J 

Mrs. Roberts: "Oh, Edward, dear, let him 
speak to his wife." Tearfully : " Think if / were 
there ! " 
•— Roberts, releasing him: "He may speak to his 
wife all night. But he mustn't knock the house 
down." 

Curwen, rushing at the grating : " Caroline ! 
Can you hear me ? Are you safe ? " 

Mrs. Curiven: "Perfectly. I had a little faint 
when we first stuck " — 

Curwen: "Faint? Oh!" 

Mrs. Curwen : " But I am all right now." 

Curwen: "Well, that's right. Don't be fright- 
ened ! There's no occasion for excitement. Keep 
perfectly calm and collected. It's the only way — 
What's that ringing ? " The sound of an electric 
bell is heard within the elevator. It increases in 
fury. 

Mrs. Roberts and Mrs. Miller: "Oh, isn't it 
dreadful ? " 



206 THE SLEEPING-CAK 

The Elevator Boy: "It^s somebody on the 
ground-floor callin' the elevator ! " 

Curwen : " Well, never mind him. Don't pay 
the slightest attention, to him. Let him go to the 
deuce ! And, Caroline ! " 

Mrs. Curwen : " Yes ? " 

Curwen : "I — I — I've got your glove all 
right." 

Mrs. Curwen : " Left, you mean, I hope ? " 

Curwen : " Yes, left, dearest ! I mean left." 

Mrs. Curwen : " Eight- button ? " 

Curwen: "Yes." 

Jfrs. Curwen : " Light drab ? " 

Curwen, pulling a light yellow glove from his 
pocket : " Oh ! " He staggers away from the grat- 
ing and stays himself against the wall, the mis- 
taken glove dangling limply from his hand. 

BobertSj Lawton, and Bemis : " Ah ! ha ! ha ! 
ha!" 

Mrs. Roberts : " Oh, for shame ! to laugh at such 
a time ! " 

" Mrs. Miller : " When it's a question of life and 
death. There ! The ringing's stopped. What's 
that ? " Steps are heard mounting the stairway 
rapidly, several treads at a time. Mr. Campbell 



AND OTHER FAKCES. 207 

suddenly bursts into the group on the landing with 
a final bound from the stairway. " Oh ! " 

Campbell: "I can't find Aunt Mary, Agnes. I 
can't find anything — not even the elevator. 
Where's the elevator ? I rang for it down there 
till I was black in the face." 

Mrs. Roberts : " No wonder ! It's here." 

Mrs. Miller: "Between this floor and the floor 
below. With my husband in it." 

Curiven : " And my wife ! " 

Lawton : " And my daughter ! " 

Bemis : " And my son ! " 

Mrs. Roberts : " And aunty ! " 
- All : "And it's stuck fast." 

» Roberts: "And the long and short of it is, 
Willis, that we don't know how to get them out, 
and we wish you would suggest some way." 

Laivton : " There's been a great tacit confidence 
among us in your executive ability and your in- 
ventive genius." 

Mrs. Roberts: "Oh, yes, we know you can do 

it." 

Mrs. Miller : " If you can't, nothing can save 

them." 

Campbell, going to the grating : " Miller ! " 



208 THE SLEEPING-CAB 

Miller: "Well?" 

Camjjhell : " Start her up ! " 

Miller : " Now, look here, Campbell, we are not 
going to stand that ; we've had enough of it. I 
speak for the whole elevator. Don't you suppose 
that if it had been possible to start her up we " — 

Mrs. Curwen : " We shouldiBfc have been at the 
moon by this time." 

Cam])hell : " Well, then, start her down ! " 

Miller: "I never thought of that." To the 
Elevator Boy : " Start her down." To the people 
on the landing above : " Hurrah ! She's off ! " 

Campbell : " Well, noiv start her up ! '^ 

A joint cry from the elevator : " Thank you I 
we'll walk up this time." 

Miller : " Here ! let us out at this landing ! " 
They are heard precipitately emerging, with sighs 
and groans of relief, on the floor below. 

Mrs. Roberts, devoutly : " Willis, it seems like 
an interposition of Providence, your coming just 
at this moment." 

Campbell : " Interposition of common sense ! 
These hydraulic elevators weaken sometimes, and 
can't go any farther." 

Roberts, to the shipwrecked guests, who arrive 



AND OTHER FAECES. 209 

at the top of the stairs, crestfallen, spent, and 
clinging to one another for support : " Why didn't 
you think of starting her down, some of you ? " 

Mrs. Roberts, welcoming them with kisses and 
hand-shakes : " I should have thought it would 
occur to you at once." 

Miller, goaded to exasperation : " Did it occur to 
any of you ? " 

Lawton, with sublime impudence : " It occurred 
to all of us. But we naturally supposed you had 
tried it." 

Mrs. Miller, taking possession of her husband : 
'' Oh, what a fright you have given us ! " 

^filler : " I given you ! Do you suppose I did 
it out of a joke, or voluntarily ? " 

Mrs. Roberts: "Aunty, I don't know what to 
say to you. Yoic ought to have been here long 
ago, before anything happened." 

Mrs. Crashaw: "Oh, I can explain everything 
in due season. What I wish you to do now is to 
let me get at Willis, and kiss him." As Campbell 
submits to her embrace : " You dear, good fellow ! 
If it hadn't been for your presence of mind, I 
don't know how we should ever have got out of 
that horrid pen." 



210 THE SLEEPING-CAR 

M7^s. Curwen, giving him her hand : " As it isn^t 
proper for me to kiss you " — 

Campbell : " Well, I don't know. I don't wish 
to be too modest." 

2Irs. Curwen : " I think I shall have to vote you 
a service of plate." 

Mrs. Roberts : " Come and look at the pattern of 
mine. And, Willis, as you are the true hero of 
the occasion, you shall take me in to dinner. And 
I am not going to let anybody go before you." 
She seizes his arm, and leads the way from the 
landing into the apartment. Roberts, Lawton, and 
Bemis follow stragglingly. 

Mrs. Miller, getting her husband to one side: 
" When she fainted, she fainted at you, of course ! 
What did you do ? " 

Miller : " Who ? I ! Oh ! " After a moment's 
reflection : " She came to ! " 

Curwen, getting his wife aside : " When you 
fainted, Caroline, who revived you ? " 

Mrs. Curwen : " Who ? Me ? Oh ! How should 
I was insensible." They wheel arm in 
it Mr. and Mrs. Miller in the middle. 
Mrs. C'liWkn yields precedence with an ironical 
courtesy : " After you, Mrs. Miller ! " 




AND OTHER FARCES. 211 

Mrs. Miller, in a nervous, inimicai twitter : " Oh, 
before the heroine of the lost elevator ? " 

Mrs. Curwen, dropping her husband's arm, and 
taking Mrs. Miller's: "Let us split the differ- 
ence." 

Mrs. Miller : " Delightful ! I shall never forget 
the honor." 

Mrs. Curwen : " Oh, don't speak of honors ! Mr. 
Miller was so kind through all those terrible scenes 
in the elevator." 

Mrs. Miller : " I've no doubt you showed your- 
self duly grateful." They pass in, followed by 
their husbands. 

Young Mr. Bemis, timidly: "Miss Lawton, in 
the elevator you asked me not to leave you. Did 
you — ah — mean — I must ask you ; it may be 
my only chance ; if you meant — never ? " 

Miss Lawton, dropping her head : "I — I — don't 
— know." 

Young Mr. Bemis: "But if I wished never to 
leave you, should you send me away ? " 

Miss Lawton, with a shy, sly upward glance at 
him : " Not in the elevator ! " 
Young Mr. Bemis : " Oh ! " 
' Mrs. Roberts, re-appearing at the door : " Why, 



^u 



212 THE SLEEPING-CAR. 

you good-for-nothing young things, why don't you 
come to — Oh ! excuse me ! " She re-enters pre- 
cipitately, followed by her tardy guests, on whom 
she casts a backward glance of sympathy. "Oh, 
you neednH hurry ! '' 



i-^oH 2/ 



